Current affairs
containing what could be a potential major disaster and ensuring it is only a minor inconvenience. Proven time and again with consistent reliability, it is a small price to pay to prevent a business’s hard earned success from going up in flames. Mr Noble added: ‘As a business we have
to be prepared. Sprinklers form part of our resilience strategy, the success of which is highlighted by impressive growth figures and minimal disruption to the business since its implementation in 2009. It’s about being a responsible business, and the inclusion of sprinklers is part of our commitment to our customers, our staff and our local community.’
National Fire Sprinkler Network have worked together to investigate the effectiveness and reliability of sprinkler systems. In an independent report carried out by Optimal Economics, thousands of incidents have been analysed to provide detailed and comprehensive analysis of the activation and performance of sprinkler systems used to control fire in buildings. It indicates that sprinkler systems have an operational reliability of 94% and demonstrate very high reliability when called to work. Furthermore, it is evident that when they
do operate, they extinguish or contain the fire on 99% of occasions across a wide range of building types3
. This is why they are chosen
to protect people, buildings and businesses. Recent research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) has shown that each year, fires in warehouses
alone (which are only 15% of industrial and commercial building stock) cause a direct financial loss to business of £230m per year; cause a loss of £190m per year in GDP through lost productivity and impacts up and down the supply chain; lose the Treasury £32m in tax receipts; and are the cause of 1,000 job losses. The contrast between two buildings with and without a sprinkler system in a fire can be rather stark. In the event of a fire, many businesses with sprinkler systems suffer a minor interruption and find they are back up and running in a matter of hours, whereas those without sprinklers can see five to six times the damage and suffer longer spells of interruption. In a nutshell, these systems make buildings and businesses resilient to fire incidents because they control or extinguish a blaze before the fire and rescue service arrives. The impacted business can be operational within hours, avoiding the economic and social costs
Iain Cox is chair of the Business Sprinkler Alliance. For more information, view page 5
References
1. UK: Commercial and Industrial Attitudes Study 2018, Business Sprinkler Alliance
2. Home Office Fire Statistics – Other Buildings Fire Dataset, HM Government
3. Efficiency and Effectiveness of Sprinkler Systems in the United Kingdom: An Analysis from Fire Service Data, Optimal Electronics, May 2017
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