TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- It doesn't take long for a fire to engulf your home, damage your property and put your life in danger.
"It could be a college dorm, it could be a room at your home," said Lorrell Bush with the Florida Fire Sprinkler Association.
The Association hosted a side by side demo with two fires. One room had sprinklers, the other did not.
In both cases, a fire ignites in a trash can.
"Look at that…that's flash over, nobody would survive that fire," Bush said about the room without sprinklers.
Charred debris is all that remained in the room that burned down without fire sprinklers. It took about 50 seconds for dangerous smoke to permeate throughout and around two minutes for the room to be fully engulfed in flames.
Then Tallahassee firefighters saved the day. The room with sprinklers mostly sustained just water damage.
"[The sprinklers don't] allow temperatures to exceed livable conditions or smoke to become untenable," said Clark Guy with the National Fire Sprinkler Association.
According to the National Fire Protection Association – 2013 had:
- 1.2 million fires reported in the U.S.
- It caused more than 3,000 civilian deaths and almost 16,000 injuries.
- They say the death rate goes down 82 percent in homes with sprinklers.
They can be expensive, but Guy believes they're worth it.
"Fire sprinklers are about the third of a cost of a funeral," he said.
For fire fighters, this could mean saving lives including their own.
"Ceilings are falling on us, we have a lot of dangers so the sprinklers they help save our lives as well as people in a house," said Kathy Gohlke with the Tallahassee Fire Department.
More:
This site provides info on sprinkler costs and more.
