Sprinkler Fitters Local 483 Training Center
Organized Labor
Jim Bollier, Training Director
I can remember the first time I got a call to come out and replace the sprinkler heads because of a fire. When I got there they were still evacuating people from the building. An old woman was all bandaged up. She was blind, living in an old folks home. A fire started in her kitchen from plastic bags she had collected getting too close to her toaster and catching on fire. She tried to put them out, and then she caught on fire, and then the cabinets caught fire, and then the sprinklers went off and put everything out. All these old people were coming out of the building. A lot of them were barely ambulatory. Without the sprinkler system it would've been a disaster.
Another time someone broke a glass window in the showroom lobby of a cabinet shop, poured gasoline on the carpet, and lit it on fire. The fire never got out of the lobby. I could still smell the gasoline when I got there to replace the sprinkler heads. Arson is a bigger problem than people realize. Some people do the craziest things.