This is absolutely not true. Sprinklers and fixed systems are important elements in any good fire protection plan and practice, but they should not take the place of hand portable extinguishers.

Sprinklers may control a large fire and keep it from spreading to other parts of the building, but they lack the speed, versatility and mobility of hand portable fire extinguishers.

Only hand portable extinguishers and wheeled extinguishers are capable of extinguishing fires quickly during the initial, incipient stages of a fire. They are the only devices that can handle hazards that are outside the design of a fixed system – i.e. a vehicle fire on a loading dock, a forklift fire in the yard, fires caused during remodeling or maintenance operations. There are also situations such as Class D hazards, flammable liquids under pressure and three-dimensional fires where sprinklers may actually have an adverse effect.

Finally, no one can predict how people will react in a fire situation – we are all afraid of fire and will revert back to natural instincts – “fight or flight”. Without modern, well maintained, hazard specific fire extinguishers at their disposal, people may try to fight with anything available – buckets of water, blankets, sand, even their own hands and feet.

Hand Portable Extinguishers, Fixed Systems Sprinklers, Smoke Detection and Alarm Systems, Building Codes and Fire Departments are all required in order to have a good Fire Protection Program that will handle any foreseeable hazard. Each element in the program is essential, each element has its place and each element cannot take the place of another.

Perhaps we as an industry have not kept track of how much good we have done.