Reason Magazin 2014Q3 Seite 33

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PUTTING OUT FIRES Everything you need to know about managing sprinkler impairments In March 1973 a fire started in a small access panel of a textile manufacturing room With out properly functioning sprinklers the fire spread engulfing a key area of the facility Ultimately the fire led to irretrievable loss of market share and the manufacturer Wabasso and its community never fully recovered Yet automatic sprinklers had been installed throughout the property All it took for the company to become the dominant story in the local newspaper was the decision to shut a single valve The temporary closure related to an expansion project on site seemed a rea sonable decision It was a short term situation that no one saw fit to reconsider or deemed worthy of actively monitoring After all what were the chances To this day no one is quite certain what went wrong But on that particular day while operators were on a lunch break something malfunctioned or perhaps an accumulation of textile material in the machine overheated and began to smolder The closed valve prevented sprinklers from emitting their customary stream of frigid droplets which could have con tained or even extinguished the blaze Soon the flames spread creating a firestorm X theSCIENCE