Residential fire sprinklers are proven life safety devices with a little dose of eco-friendliness to go along with it. My grandmother use to say, “An ounce of prevention, out weighs a pound of cure.” Still to this day, I hate cough medicine, so those daily vitamins go down much easier.

Not only are residential sprinklers a head above the rest in improving fire and life safety in the homes and not to mention property liability but it is (in my mind) a real chance to make a conscience decision to improve our already depleted natural resource…water. Do I have your attention Nader’s Raiders?

Here in the west the cries of water conservation are heard everywhere. For those not familiar with the Wild West, a vast part of our lands are deserts and dry climates. Reports of record dry conditions in the forest and high desert areas are causing hundreds and thousands of wild fires a year. Let’s make no mistake that these fires have and will continue to be a natural disaster that simply can not be avoided. As our population grows and so our consumption, we as caretakers of this country and earth need to make provisions for our safety and survival. Our lakes, streams and watersheds are at record lows and those who are nature lovers can vouch for that. Even in the wake of massive floods in some areas and returning water levels, it is still imperative that we continue to conserve. This is not a cry of a bleeding heart, but just a suggestion that the fire protection industry, which has little to do with the environmental movement, can make a serious contribution to our planet’s future.

A lot of statistics are thrown out on the life safety issues, but I wanted to take a look at a different benefit in having residential sprinklers. So, I’ll get down to the nuts and bolts…or dare I say pipes and couplings. With a growing population and increasing water demand, is it not our responsibility to respond to the need to cut water usage as an industry? According to the NFPA, their studies show that when fire sprinklers are present in the home, 91% of the time the sprinklers will control the fire at or near the point of origin. So, it would be safe to say that it is probable that 9 out of 10 times only one fire sprinkler head discharges during a home fire. Let’s do the numbers, the average fire sprinkler discharges 10 to 26 gallons of water per minute. Let’s say it takes this one fire sprinkler 5 minutes to control and then ultimately extinguish the fire in most cases. By this time the average emergency response team is on site and clears the residence of any additional danger from the fire hazard and proceeds to shut the water off. We’ll assume that the fire sprinkler has been spraying water in upwards to 20 minutes. 20 minutes multiplied by 10 to 26 gallons of water per minute comes to 200 to 520 gallons of water used to contain and extinguish the home fire.

Let’s say the same home does not have fire sprinklers and the emergency response team arrives to fight the blaze. Let’s take into consideration that the fire has been ablaze and unabated for 5 to 7 minutes before response teams can arrive. We now have a fire that is probably in the range of 1200° within the home. Given these circumstances fire fighters are more than likely fighting the flames with 2 to 3 hoses. But for comparison purposes we’ll say only one hose is needed to contain the fire, to just the one home and extinguish it entirely within 20 minutes. The average interior hose used by a fire fighter discharges 125 to 200 gallons of water per minute, yes a minute. It would take you 36 to 57 weeks to drink that amount of water if you drank the recommended amount of 64 ounces a day. One minute of water flow from a hose could equal the amount of water you would need to drink in a year. So, for those from the field services end (like myself) and you’re not an engineer, that comes to 2,500 to 4,000 gallons of water in a 20 minute span from one hose. Remember that a home that has been engulfed by flames is probably not going to be fought with just one hose or for just 20 minutes for that matter.

USFA reported that there were 396,000 reported fires in 2006. Based on that data and the use of just one fire hose per house fire, the water usage is staggering. That’s almost 1.6 billion gallons of water used every 20 minutes. That’s the equivalent of a person flushing a standard toilet 100,000,000 times. Anyone want to give that a shot? I’ve heard of stranger Guinness world records.

What if the home was located in a rural area with wild brush or forest? The dangers that await a rural family intensify due to the longer traveling distance for emergency response, prolonged reporting time of fire due to lower population density, water availability issues and open areas that are more affected by winds that can spread the fire. What type of environmental danger are we placing in the surrounding areas and other rural homeowners?

In closing, I think we do ourselves just when we can use less and waste less. In this case less really becomes more. With the improvements in residential fire protection and with the use of fire sprinklers, the extra water we’ll be saving can be put to good use…towards those lives that are saved.

Jason Williams has been in the fire industry for almost a decade now, serving as a Field Lead, in project/program management and in fabrication. Currently, Jason manages field service crews and many projects for a number of big box retailers nationally. Prior to accidently finding himself in the fire industry, Jason worked for his family’s small plumbing and electrical company in Arizona as a technician. There he started his unexpected journey into the fire industry by working with residential and commercial above/underground electrical and water systems. His background in plumbing, electrical and building construction eventually landed him in the fire protection industry and working for one of the “industry giants”. Jason hopes to continue and contribute for many more years in the industry that he has found a real passion for.