Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service have taken part in a think sprinkler demonstration for a hard hitting film on the BBC.
The piece was made for the BBC’s East Midlands edition of the regional news programme Inside Out.
On the anniversary of a tragic fire that claimed the lives of four young children in Derbyshire, the programme was broadcast to highlight the importance of checking smoke alarms and the role sprinklers can play in saving lives.
The fire on 12 January 2011 killed Tommy, 9, Alesha, 6, Rocco, 4, and Apollonia, 2. Their mother, Rachel Henson somehow managed to survive.
The house had three smoke alarms, but two were not fitted and one was not working. If the smoke alarms had been working, the families chances of survival would have been significantly higher.
However, Derbyshire’s chief fire officer, Sean Frayne, goes further and says that it should be mandatory for sprinklers to be fitted in every new home.
“By fitting sprinklers into the home, it’s like having a firefighter in every room of your house, immediately available to respond should there be a fire,” he says in the piece.
The county has had 18 deaths in the last 18 months – the third worst in the country.
The BBC also spoke to sprinkler campaigner Nick Ross, who said, “You could stop almost all fire deaths. Instead of killing 3-400 people a year, we can get down to almost zero. We just need to decide to do it.”
Pressure on parliament has been building to debate the issue of sprinklers with a parliamentary seminar discussing their use last week, and the Welsh Assembly passing a law to make their installation mandatory in new homes.
