Every minute counts when fire breaks out
By Don McGonagil

December 05, 2003This is the first article in a five-part series on home fire safety.

It’s 12.53 am. You and your family are sound asleep. Ten seconds ago, a small fire started in your living room. In the next five minutes, your life may change forever, or you may just need to clean up in the morning, and air out the house. It will all depend on whether or not you have fire sprinklers in your home.

Every 74 seconds a house burns in the United States. More than 4,000 Americans die in fires every year, 80 percent of them in home fires. The victims are usually children and seniors. Although most home fires start during the day, most fatal fires start at night — like this one.

One minute after the smoke alarm sounds, you awaken. You don’t smell smoke, but you get up to check. It takes almost 30 seconds to reach the stairs and start down. As you descend, you start to smell smoke. You see smoke billowing out of the living room. In the living room, the curtains are in flames. The temperature at the ceiling is approaching 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Heat activates the single sprinkler closest to the fire. Within seconds the flames are controlled and may be extinguished. Smoke in the living room begins to clear, if — your home has fire sprinklers.

If not — you start back up the stairs, yelling to warn your family. By the time you reach the top of the stairs, you are blinded by smoke. Fire is not bright. It is hidden by thick, black smoke. Building materials and furnishings give off poisonous gases as they burn. Most people who die in fires don’t die from burns. Smoke and toxic fumes are almost always the killer. Sprinklers can prevent or eliminate almost all smoke from fires.

In the blackness, you collide with your spouse. One of you goes to your son’s room, the other to your daughter’s. Your daughter’s room is filled with smoke. She’s still asleep. Wrapping your daughter in a blanket, you carry her from the room. Downstairs, the fire spreads through the living room. The temperature at the living room ceiling approaches 1400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Carrying your daughter you reach the top of the stairs. Gasping for breath in the thick, smoky air, you start down. Fighting the heat and smoke you reach the bottom of the stairs and escape.
The living room is enveloped in flames as the air in the room catches fire and flashover occurs. A wall of searing heat races up the stairs. Had you been in the living room at flashover, you would not have survived. Nothing, and no one, survives flashover.

Fire is amazingly fast. In less than five minutes the fire is out of control. You find your family waiting for you outside. You all run to a neighbor’s house. By the time they answer the door and call 911 seven minutes will have passed since the fire started. In most communities a four-minute response time is considered excellent.
If you have fire sprinklers you may spend the time describing the fire and how it was controlled. If not, you’ll watch your house burn as you wait. In the distance you hear sirens approaching. Eleven minutes after the fire started the first fire equipment arrives.

If you have sprinklers, firefighters will make sure the fire is out, and give you the all clear. If you don’t, firefighters will start pouring thousands of gallons of water on the fire.

According to the Scottsdale Report, fire sprinklers use less than 341 gallons of water to put out an average fire. Firefighters use more than 2,935 gallons for an average fire. With sprinklers, an average fire will cause $2,166 in damage. Without sprinklers an average fire will cause $41, 019 in damage.

Home fire sprinklers save time and money. Protect what you value most. Install fire sprinklers in your home.
Communities nationwide are considering building codes requiring the installation of residential fire sprinkler systems. If installed during new home construction, home fire sprinklers often cost no more than 1 to 1-1/2 percent of the total building cost, which is about what you would pay for an upgrade in carpeting.

Next week we will discuss holiday home safety tips.

Don McGonagil,
The Home Inspection Company 615.582.2296
www.thehomeinspectioncompany.com
donmcgonagil@comcast.net