After two years of travel restrictions and post-Covid, we can finally meet up for a two-day fire sprinkler conference in London on the 31st of May 2002 at the Park Plaza - Riverbank. Already they have 50 presentations planned and over 260 participants from over 23 countries.

Two years on from the tragedy of Grenfell where 72 people died, the law still states that in England only new residential properties above 30 m in height must be fitted with sprinklers. In commercial buildings such as warehouses, only those over 20,000 sqm must have sprinklers. Last year 334 people died as a result of fires and over 80% of these are from single occupancy dwellings such as houses, flats and maisonettes. Is it not time to change the law and fit all new residential properties with sprinklers?

On the 8^th June 2019 a fire in Eunice Kelly’s flat in Greater Manchester was contained before it could spread to the other 57 homes in her block. The building is run by For­Housing group which spent £5million on sprinklers in its 17 tower blocks after Grenfell. Assets director Mark Lowe said: “This single situation has made the investment worthwhile.” This is yet another example of countless numbers of lives being saved by the simple installation of a sprinkler system.

A car park at Kings Dock, close to the Echo Arena in Liverpool, went up in flames on New Year’s Eve. The final event of the Liverpool International Horse Show had to be cancelled as fire crews tackled the inferno and people were evacuated from the area. Witnesses described abandoning their vehicles and running for their lives as the fire broke out.

It was devastating watching the news coverage of the Grenfell fire disaster on 14^th June 2017 and to hear that so many have lost their lives in this devastating fire our deepest sympathies go to the victims and families of this tragedy. 

Before the scientific calculators and computers, we still produced hydraulic calculations for High Hazard sprinkler systems but this was a long-winded and time-consuming process and prone to error.

fire sprinklers to philosophy well apparently you can in 23 steps, all you need to do is to type fire sprinklers into Wikipedia and then click on the first link which appears in each article and continue doing this until you get to philosophy. 

I am always delighted to be able to show old hands who have been using our FHC software for many years new tricks and shortcuts

EN 12845: 2015 Automatic Sprinkler Systems or to give it its full title EN 12845:2015 Fixed firefighting systems - Automatic sprinkler systems -  Design, installation and maintenance