Environmental Benefits of Rapid Fire Detection

A study has been undertaken to investigate the environmental implication of early detection of a fire for the environmental impact of the fire when taking into account the global impact of the intervention itself and the need to replace building and contents as a function of the size and duration of the fire. The various scenarios investigated show that the greatest benefit is gained if a fire is detected early and can be extinguished while small without the intervention of the fire service. Significant savings can also be made if a sprinkler can keep the fire small while the fire service is on their way to the fire so that they meet a small fire which they can rapidly extinguish once they are on the scene. The methodology is based on an assumption of a single enclosure size, a generic fire load, detection and response. Future work should investigate different building typologies, fire loads and response types.