Sprinkler System in Garage Saves Duplex

Fire district captain says small blaze was started directly under a sprinkler head.
By Brent Ainsworth


A sprinkler system in a Novato duplex garage doused a fire before emergency crews arrived Tuesday night, but a very good lesson was demonstrated in the process.

The damage at 16 Bridal Path Lane, in the Wood Hollow area of northern Novato, was mostly limited to smoke and water rather than fire, according to Captain Alex Bowlds of the Novato Fire District. He said there were no injuries by the fire caused a match being thrown into a five-gallon canister.

The fire, called in at 8:28 p.m. just behind Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co. headquarters, was put out by a ceiling-mounted sprinkler head that was directly over the canister and close to an open hole into the attic.

“The sprinklers saved the structure,” Bowlds said. “In most residential sprinkler applications, (the sprinkler heads) are there to guide the people to safety, not to save the structure. This one just happened to be placed perfectly.”

Bowlds said it’s unusual for a garage area to have sprinklers, “but in this case it paid off,” he said.

Bowlds added that the opening to the attic could have created a delay in sprinkler activation.

“In some cases, as hot gasses go up to the attic through that opening, the sprinkler head doesn’t get hot enough to activate, and the damage can be much worse,” he said. “Attics in most structures are not sprinkled, so this could have ended up as a raging attic fire spreading to the living quarters. There was a potential for that this time. … We were surprised the sprinkler system went off.”

The fire crew removing the fire-damaged debris from the garage along with a few items that had been soaked by the sprinkler. No cars were in the garage and most of the items in there were household items, Bowlds said.

Related Topics: Bridal Path Lane, Fire, Novato fire district, Structure Fire, and Wood Hollow
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