Most people think that fire sprinkler systems in Manhattan, NY, work like they do in the movies, where a small amount of smoke sets off all of the sprinklers in a building, soaking everyone and everything inside. But the truth is, sprinklers aren’t even triggered by smoke, and they don’t all go off at once. Fire sprinkler systems are heat activated, one sprinkler head at a time, and most fires usually require only one or two sprinklers to be extinguished. A specific temperature automatically triggers each sprinkler head, and just one or two sprinklers can extinguish or contain a fire to the room where it started.
It may seem like a fire sprinkler system is like choosing water damage over fire damage. This fear is a spinoff from the myth that sprinklers are activated by smoke and that all the sprinkler heads go off at the same time. If that were the case, then fire sprinkler systems could potentially cause more harm than good. Just think, if you burned a piece of toast, then every sprinkler would go off, soaking all of your property and belongings, even though there never was any true danger of fire.
Lucky for us, the engineers that developed fire sprinkler systems designed them to reduce the damage to your property from water, smoke, and fire. Fire sprinkler systems have been around for more than two centuries and have been significantly improved over the years. Early versions weren’t very reliable and caused significant water damage. But nowadays, sprinkler systems are credited with reducing unnecessary deaths and losses of property by more than 65 percent.