There may be equipment damage, and
that's the collateral damage sort of issue again that may be there.
What, the agent-fuel interaction to the point again that I talked about
water-reactive materials.
Personnel hazards, talked about that with respect to carbon dioxide, for example.
And what's the toxicity of the agent?
Is there a reduced oxygen level that's going to be created?
Maybe obscuration levels in the space.
Though I'll mention in terms of obscuration, there are few of the agents
that work that don't provide some level of obscuration, some worse than others,
but that's fairly typical to get at least some obscuration as a result of
perhaps a change in characteristic in the smoke that's created.
If it's a fixed system, such as I showed you the couple diagrams here with
gas cylinders here, there's got to be some supply of the water that's here, and
sometimes that's an elevated tank, maybe a lake or a reservoir that's present.
In some cases it's a flowing river where the water is coming from, but, so
I have to think about where the agent supply is coming from.
If it's a fixed supply, then I have just this on-site storage, now I have
to look at how much do I need, how much room is that going to take, as the system
operates for a particular fire, how long does it take to recharge it so that we
can reopen with protection in place, what's the availability of the agent.
There are still some Halon 1301 systems around though that,
as the agent is not being produced anymore.
As the system discharges, then getting a replacement of the Halon 1301
is a bit problematic outside of some of the special reserves that are available.
There are a couple application methods that are available,
either total flooding or local application.
The typical sprinkler system involves a local application.
It's just the sprinkler above the fire, or closest to the fire,
is the one that will operate in most fires.
And it's rare that, let me say it another way.
Sorry.
So closest sprinkler operates.
And in order for a second sprinkler to operate,
it requires that that first sprinkler's not overly effective and
there's still enough heat being generated and transported out in it through
the ceiling jet that causes the second sprinkler to operate, third sprinkler.
The only exception to where all the sprinklers go off in a space is,
of course, what our movies like to portray, which is it's just a myth and
usually completely incorrect for
a particular facility, is where there's a deluge system involved,
specifically designed for all the sprinklers to operate.
And that's usually a very special case, usually an industrial setting,
maybe a transformer vault or those kind of places.
There are total flooding systems.
These are usually the clean agent systems,
the gaseous systems, the foam systems, such as I've got a video on it
in a little bit where you'll see the whole place fill up with foam.
Water is usually default agent of choice.