Ever accidentally start a fire while testing a fire alarm system?

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bbaumer

bbaumer

Senior Member
Location
Indiana
Haven't been on here in awhile but thought I would share this story.

We were commissioning a new fire alarm system install this week in a multi-story hi-rise building. We don't use walk test or magnets when we test. We pull the pull stations, smoke the smokes and heat the heats etc.

When doing this we usually try to pull a pull station first to "defeat" the alarm verification feature on the smoke detectors so they go into alarm quicker. We also use one of those "SOLO" sticks with the cups on the end to enclose the detector when applying smoke or heat.

Well, on one floor the first device on the floor was a heat detector. We'd already done several floors that day. Put the cup on the heat detector and started heating it up. It was taking longer than usual but thought maybe heat detectors have alarm verification like the smokes on this particular system. Started to see a glow in the cup. Hmmm. That's unusual I said to the alarm company tech. He pulled the cup down. FLAMES! Not sure if the cup or the detector or both were on fire as the flame extinguished quickly. The detector was a bit charred and the cup smelled like burnt plastic or rubber. Yikes! We had a lot more to test and had to smell that burnt cup the rest of the day.
 

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gadfly56

gadfly56

Senior Member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Professional Engineer, Fire & Life Safety
I've never set one on fire, but there was a non-responsive heat detector that looked like Salvador Dali had designed it when I was done.
 
F

fmtjfw

Senior Member
Location
Fairmont, WV, USA
There is a story of an inspector building a fire in a wheelbarrow and rolling it around in the building setting off alarms. (And causing smoke damage everywhere he went.) But I don't think there is an inspector on earth that dumb -- wait a minute -- maybe I've met him?:happyyes:
 
K8MHZ

K8MHZ

Senior Member
Location
Michigan. It's a beautiful peninsula, I've looked
Occupation
Electrician
gadfly56 said:
That looks like a shadow image of what used to be on the wall, rather than the objects themselves. Do I have that right?
Click to expand...

It's smoke discoloration. The objects on the wall masked part of the wall from the smoke and you can see where they were. The swirly patterns are from the smoke cooling and moving downward and staining the wall in the process.
 
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