Sprinkler stop saves Leeds School

The school in Leeds was subjected to an arson attack at 21.07 hours last week when the contents of a recycling bin were placed against the side of the building and ignited. The fire then spread to involve a set of external doors to a plant room, these were fitted with alloy ventilation louvers and the fire penetrated the building. This section of the school was opened in 2004 and is fully sprinklered.

The alarm was raised via a smoke detector (on a monitored system) in the plant room and two sprinkler heads within the plant room adjacent to the entrance doors operated and prevented the fire entering.

Attending fire crews extinguished the external fire using a hosereel. The plant room contained the boilers for both heating the school and providing hot water and if lost would have seriously affected the school, as it was all services were checked and returned in to full use within 24 hrs.

The Local Education Authority Education Leeds have been fitting suppression systems in all schools for the last five years and have not suffered a serious fire incident in any of these buildings.

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