Seeing is believing, and in Wellington, Ontario, deputy fire chief Jason Benn is ensuring his community will learn about the life-saving benefits of installing fire sprinklers in new homes.
Benn and his team from Centre Wellington Fire Rescue have built a home fire sprinkler display featuring all the components of a home fire sprinkler system. It is an excellent teaching tool at community outreach events.
“We had some sprinkler fitters, as well as some carpenters, who helped us build the display. They were able to follow HFSC’s instructions,” Benn says. “We constructed it, with a little modification for demonstration purposes, mounted it to some plywood, put a light on both sides, some hoses, pamphlet holders, and we had ourselves a complete sprinkler.”
Centre Wellington Fire Rescue was one of the 2022 recipients of the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition Canada’s 2022 stipends. They received $500 to go towards community outreach and education projects.
The team regularly brings the events to home shows, festivals, and anywhere else that the department interacts with the general population. A particularly popular idea for Benn is cottage shows, especially when people start building more and more in cottage country.
“There was a cottage association meeting, where they were planning to build a lot of cottages in one area,” Benn says. “We took that opportunity to educate them on the benefits of home fire sprinklers, or cottage fire sprinklers in this case.”
The model itself is not fully functional right now, but Benn has plans to modify the example further using some hosing to make it actually spray water. Benn thinks that example will better educate people that when one sprinkler goes off, not all go off.
The NFPA 13D example is only one of several that fire departments across Canada have developed over the last year using money received from 2022 stipend applications.
“The stipend is an amazing tool,” Benn says. “Many fire services generally would not get the chance to build something of this nature. I know a lot of departments have low budgets, and this is an education tool that many, many services can take advantage of.”
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