>>15547164
"I drive one of those big red trucks that would respond to an incident like this. Although I work on the other side of the country, many things are all the same.
Suppression systems are to be tested yearly per local laws. This is also verified by the fire department to make sure it has been completed. We do inspections on a regular basis to check for these things, including fire extinguishers, exit signs, etc. and yes, we do usually have access to buildings like this that store or secure highly sensitive things.
Suppression systems don’t just fail. They are tested regularly to prevent this type of thing. Systems also have a sectional control valve(s), that control the flow of water to certain areas. So if there is a fire in area 1 and the system sprinklers are flowing water there, once it’s out- you can manually shut the system off to area 1 without effecting the other areas, say 2, 3 and 4 keeping the rest of the system in service. A warehouse this big would have to have fire curtains, walls and doors rated for fire, especially when storing the amount of fire load they would assumed to have.
Another thing to mention, any building with a suppression system is managed by a 24/7 monitoring company. So when an alarm activates, it notifies the dispatch center who then dispatches the local fire department. Sometimes this can take 5-6 minutes to activate but the fact the fire was so large and no fire department was on scene yet is interesting to me. A fire doubles in size every minute. Typical response times are 6-8 minutes or less in metropolitan areas."