On Sunday morning, City of Dickson Fire Department crews were dispatched to a commercial water flow alarm at a local commercial business located within their Industrial Park in Dickson, TN. Fire crews arrived at the facility, which manufactures wood doors to find smoke visible and signs of sprinkler system activation. Firefighters made an interior attack in the 160,000 sqft industrial building to find the seat of the fire.
The source of the fire was determined to be an electric tow-motor (forklift) which was charging at the time. The fire did activate a couple of sprinkler heads. The heads that were set off kept the fire small enough and prevented the fire from spreading beyond the “room” the forklift was in. The fire damage was limited to the tow-motor itself and some cosmetic interior damage. Most importantly, thankfully there was no loss of life. The fire crews were able to extinguish the fire and the sprinkler system was then shut down. Once the facility was cleared and ventilated, on-site employees were able to assist firefighters in removing the tow-motor outside where the fire department could continue to cool the tow-motor and its battery after the fire damage to control the thermal run-a-way.
Fire sprinklers are designed for life safety. In this case, they performed flawlessly. The fire was kept small enough by the sprinklers alone, allowing all the employees to safely evacuate the large facility and kept the fire damage to minimal cosmetic damage. Thus allowing everyone’s survival and for the facility to continue operations with minimum interuptance. A common myth as we have seen in some “Hollywood” productions is that all sprinkler heads go off at the same time. In reality, a set heat rating activates only the closest heads to the fire. The fire department was only on-scene for less than two- hours and fifteen minutes.
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