04 Oct 2012
A clothing shop’s sprinkler system has been credited with limiting the amount of damage caused by a storeroom blaze.
A Berkshire Fire and Rescue Service spokesman said the blaze at H&M’s Newbury store could have been far worse had sprinklers not been fitted in the storeroom.
Three crews were called to put out the fire at the store in Parkway Shopping Centre after it triggered its fire detection system. Staff had tried to put out the flames with fire extinguishers but were driven back by the smoke.
Some damage was caused to stock in the storeroom but the six-head sprinkler system contained the blaze and stopped it spreading to other parts of the building, info4fire said.
The British Automatic Fire Sprinkler Association said systems such as the one fitted at the H&M shop were, worldwide, the most commonly used fixed fire protection systems. It said its figures showed that in buildings protected by sprinklers about 99% of fires were controlled by the sprinklers alone.
Copyright Press Association 2012