Date: 18th September, 2017
A sprinkler demonstration unit owned by Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service will feature at a national trade show later this week.
The Service has been invited to participate in the Emergency Services Show, which is being held at the NEC in Birmingham on 20-21 September.
The unit will be used to show the benefits of sprinkler systems, with a number of live fire demonstrations helping to dispel many misconceptions about how sprinklers work and how much water they use. These real-time demonstrations show how the sprinkler heads detect a fire and how the system can quickly suppress the flames in a controlled manner.
Dorset & Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service fire safety officers will be on hand for visitors to ask questions and to find out more about how to include sprinklers in new developments and retrofit in existing properties.
Area Manager Seth Why, Head of Fire Safety, said: “As a Service, we work hard to promote the benefits of sprinklers, and this demonstration unit is used at events across Dorset and Wiltshire to show people how sprinklers work and to dispel the myths. The Hollywood impression is that a property is drenched from the effect of all the heads operating when sprinklers activate, when actually it is only the head closest to the fire that operates.”
He added: “Demonstration units like ours are not commonly used by fire and rescue services so the organisers of the national Emergency Services Show invited us to attend this event. We hope this will encourage other fire and rescue services to get similar displays to promote the benefits of sprinklers more widely.”
Further information about sprinklers can be found at www.dwfire.org.uk/sprinklers