Various British fire organizations have agreed that an appropriate governmental response to a car park fire that took place in 2019 could have prevented the recent disaster at the Luton Airport car park. The October 10th Luton fire, which authorities now suggest was initiated by a “vehicle fault”, resulted in the cancellation of 235 flights, caused structural damage to the airport’s multi-story parking garage, and destroyed more than 1400 cars. The car park was constructed only four years ago but will now likely be demolished due to the extensive damage.

Ali Perry, chief executive of the British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association, was quoted as calling the fire a “regrettable reminder of why BAFSA continues to call for sprinklers to be fitted in all modern, multi-story car parks.”

The Fire Brigades Union described the Luton car park as an “accident waiting to happen” and slammed government regulators for failing to learn from the December 2017 New Year’s Eve multi-story car park fire at Liverpool’s Echo Arena, which destroyed more than 1000 vehicles. Following that fire the Merseyside Fire and Rescue Service went on record as saying the fire could have been stopped by a fire sprinkler system, giving crews a much better chance of limiting the damage. The Echo Arena car park was torn down and replaced with a new car park at a cost of 26 million pounds, but included a sprinkler system. The Luton car park was built with similar construction materials as the original Echo Arena car park and yet without fire sprinklers two years after the fire.

The Business Sprinkler Alliance (BSA), backed by the National Fire Chiefs Council, has also called for sprinklers in all new car parks. BSA Secretary Tom Roache noted “Current regulatory guidance doesn’t call for sprinklers in these buildings” because it is based on “thinking from the 1980’s and early 90’s where cars were built very differently than they are today.”

Spain’s deadliest nightclub fire in 33 years killed 13 people on 1 October 2023, the latest in a long list of tragic fires that have proven the need for automatic fire sprinkler systems in these occupancies. The fire is alleged to have started around 6 am in the Teatre nightclub on the outskirts of the city of Murcia in the southeast of Spain, but the dead were found in La Fonda Milagrosa, one of three adjoining nightclubs.

According to CNN, the Teatre venue opened as a licensed nightclub in 2008, but in 2019 the owner decided to split the building in two to create La Fonda, reportedly separating the two only with gypsum wallboard. By 2022 local authorities had decided the alterations required scrutiny and that a separate license would be needed for La Fonda. Questions have been raised as to whether La Fonda even had an emergency exit. La Fonda Milagrossa was ordered to close in January of 2022, and the order to close was reissued in October of 2022 when the owner’s appeal was unsuccessful. Nevertheless, it continued to operate, with the enforcement failures leading to tragedy.

The most deadly nightclub fire in Spain took place in December of 1983, when 81 people died in a nightclub fire in Madrid, but there have already been numerous deadly nightclub fires around the world in this century:

October 2015 – Bucharest, Romania – 45 dead
January 2013 – Santa Maria, Brazil – 242 dead
January 2009 – Bangkok, Thailand – 66 dead
September 2008 – Shenzhen, China – 43 dead
April 2008 – Quito, Ecuador – 14 dead
December 2004 – Buenos Aires, Argentina – 194 dead
December 2003 – Perm, Russia – 153 dead
February 2003 – Rhode Island, USA – 100 dead

Nightclubs are notoriously crowded and dark, the use of alcohol by patrons can impair judgement, and security concerns often compromise exits. Advocates of automatic fire sprinkler systems recognize their ability to overcome these obstacles and prevent such tragedies.

With the cooperation of the IFSA and the Latin America Fire Protection Network, the Colombian Fire Sprinkler Association (ANRACI) hosted a three-day conference and expo in Medellin, Colombia 19-21 September, with a total of 4775 participants from 23 different countries. Held at the Plaza Mayor, the academic component of the event featured 5 master conferences, 14 technical conferences, 7 specialized sector courses, 3 “conversations” and 40 branded technical conferences. The “Fire Expo Latam”, held on the 20th and 21st, featured 5000 square meters of exhibits. Billed as the most important summit in Latin America, the event included side by side burns to demonstrate the effectiveness of automatic fire sprinkler systems.

A fire in a rundown building in Johannesburg, South Africa, has left at least 76 dead and injured at least 50 others. The dead include at least 12 children. People were seen jumping to their deaths during the 31 August 2023 fire, with exits reportedly blocked by locked security gates.

Officials initially claimed that the 5-story building in the central business district of South Africa’s capital had been occupied by squatters. Abandoned and broken-down buildings are reported to be common in the area, and this particular building had been featured in a recent New York Times article describing the deteriorating conditions in this city with a population of 6 million. Indicative of the deterioration, the Times article reported that in May the city elected its 6^th different mayor in the span of 22 months.

During apartheid the building had been used as a checkpoint for black workers, issuing passes to restrict movements, and was still owned by the city. However, a breakdown in governmental regulation has allowed criminal gangs to seize control of empty buildings, demanding rents from those desperate for shelter. One surviving resident reported to National Public Radio (NPR) that she had come from a poorer African country to seek a better life and, along with her two children and boyfriend, lived in a makeshift shack constructed within the building for which she was paying the “cartel” about US$ 60 per month.

Officials believe that as many as 200 people had been living in the building before the fire, with makeshift cooking and heating arrangements. Since the fire occurred during a power failure, it is suspected that candles may have been the cause.

The fire was somewhat reminiscent of the 2 December 2016 “Ghost Ship” fire that took place in the United States in Oakland, California, and resulted in 36 deaths. Almost all of the victims were individuals attending a party on a second floor built within what had been a 9880 sq ft (918 m²) former warehouse constructed of cement block.  Although located in an industrial zone and rented as a commercial property, the building had been illegally converted into a maze of loft spaces housing 25 artists along with family member of the master tenant. The building was packed with combustibles, including a staircase constructed of wood pallets. The exact cause of the fire was never determined, although it was suspected to be electrical in origin. A web of extension cords reportedly provided power to the building, fed from an auto body shop next door through a hole in the wall. Building and fire codes had not been properly enforced, and in 2020 the City of Oakland settled lawsuits for US$33 million, including US$ 9 million to one person who survived but with lifelong injuries. Pacific Gas & Electric and the Ng family that owned the building also settled for undisclosed sums. The master tenant ultimately pled guilty to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter.

The most deadly wildfire in the United States in over a century totally destroyed the historic whaling town of Lahaina on the island of Maui, Hawaii, and resulted in 97 confirmed deaths, with 31 individuals still missing. Hawaiian Electric Company said that power lines falling in high winds seem to have caused a fire during the early morning of 8 August 2003, but power lines in West Maui had been de-energized for more than six hours by the time a second afternoon fire began in the Lahaina area, a possible flare-up of the original blaze that officials thought had been contained. The fire rushed down dry hillsides toward the community of 13,000 that had once served as the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom, and the lack of warning sirens or texts, combined with only one open road through town, forced many to try to ride out the firestorm in the adjacent ocean waters while boats in the harbor burned. The 911 system collapsed and fire hydrants ran dry, leaving Lahaina a collection of charred remains of buildings and cars.

One of the issues that will likely be studied is whether exterior fire sprinkler protection could have stopped the fire, mitigating the huge loss of lives and property. Such systems have been around for more than a century, and have proven successful in many instances. For example, an exterior sprinkler system was installed at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park in 1947, and is credited with saving the historic wooden building from the North Fork fire that engulfed the vicinity of the inn in 1988.

While water supplies needed for exterior protection systems are large, installations in seaside towns like Lahaina could rely upon the same technique traditionally used in sprinkler protection of cruise ships, where a small automatically available fresh water supply can be augmented by saltwater through a sea chest in the event of an emergency. Yet there are also questions regarding the effectiveness of the water systems under high wind conditions. The development of a high pressure system to the north of the island combined with a low pressure hurricane to the south of the island had  produced wind gusts exceeding 60 mph (97 kph) at the time of the Lahaina fire.

A number of small companies are now offering the installation of wildfire sprinkler systems in the western United States, while companies in Australia are selling “bushfire sprinkler systems.” Many of these systems are based on the use of lawn-care type rotating sprinklers, and can be manually activated, activated remotely, or activated automatically through the use of ultraviolet detection.

The NFPA, through its “Firewise USA” program aimed at reducing the risk of wildfires, has published a one-page fact sheet entitled “Exterior Sprinkler Systems.” Produced in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service, the US Department of the Interior and the National Association of State Foresters, the fact sheet notes that post-fire assessments have shown exterior sprinkler systems can be effective in helping a home survive a wildfire, but cautions there are still potential issues:

• A water supply is needed for a period that could be up to 8 hours
• The effectiveness of a system is questionable if a neighboring home is burning due to excessive radiant heat and possible contact exposure
• While the systems can be activated manually or by an automated device, the ability of the systems to activate on the basis of ember exposure has not been determined, and embers can be transported for up to a mile from a flame front
• The most threatening wildfires occur during high-wind events, which can affect distribution of water droplets

As a result, the NFPA fact sheet recommends that exterior sprinklers be considered only a supplement to already proven mitigation strategies, including reduction of potential fuels around the home exterior, removal of roof and gutter debris, and use of noncombustible and ignition resistant building materials and designs.

Although the publication suggests that local fire departments may have suggestions to help minimize water consumption when the system is fed from a municipal supply, it does not consider the possibility that homeowners may be prevented from installing systems that would deplete marginal public supplies during a wildfire, especially in rural areas.

Note: A link to satellite images of Banyan Court Park and other areas of Lahaina taken before and after the fire can be found here:

https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2023/08/10/1193138605/satellite-images-show-utter-devastation-from-wildfires-in-maui

The IFSA’s video explaining the need for fire protection industry professionals and regulators to demand product certification by reputable testing laboratories is now available in 6 languages: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin Chinese, Turkish and Arabic. You can view the video by clicking here.

The 6-minute video focuses on the shortcomings of noncertified fire sprinklers that have been identified, some actually removed from service where they were being trusted to provide fire protection to the public. When such noncertified fire sprinklers are tested using standard product test protocols, they routinely fail to demonstrate adequate performance.  Certain types of failure seem to predominate, but all failures indicate a danger to public safety.

It is hoped that the video will be successful in bringing the dangers of noncertified fire sprinklers to the attention of government regulators, and convince them to prevent the installation of the substandard products in their countries.