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c h a P t e r 11 cauSe for a l aRm we’ve all gaZed uPward in Public sPaces to contemplate those little inverted metal rosettes that dot the ceiling at regular intervals—fire sprinklers. New or old, most utilize the elegantly simple design of multiple sprinkler heads, affixed to a constantly charged water line. Each sprinkler head has its own heat-activated trigger (a fusible metal link or liquid-filled glass vial designed to break at a predetermined temperature), so that all heads in the area of a fire, and only those heads, will be activated. Fire sprinklers were not originally calculated to save lives; rather, they arose from a purely mercantile desire to preserve the huge “manufactories” and warehouses that were the great engines of the Industrial Revolution. However, more recent history demonstrates their life-saving potential in situations where seconds may be critical to crowd evacuation. One prime example was a fire at the Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis, Minnesota, just three nights before Great White’s 2003 appearance at The Station. The similarities—and different outcomes—of the two fires are striking. The Fine Line club opened in 1987 in the restored century-old Consortium Building in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District. It was a well-maintained twotier performing space with a legal capacity of 720 patrons. At about 7:05 p.m. on February 17, 2003, an obscure opening band from Seattle, Jet City Fix, illegally ignited pyrotechnics that struck the club’s ceiling, setting it afire. Automatic sprinklers on the ceiling activated, quelling the blaze. When firemen arrived, all 120 club patrons had already been evacuated by the club’s staff without injury. The fire was completely extinguished in fifteen minutes, and the club reopened a month later after repairing about $100,000 worth of smoke and water damage. Automatic sprinklers at the Fine Line were a critical factor in averting a Station-like tragedy there. Over the course of their development, fire sprinklers were not always automatic, and not always effective. One early attempt envisioned a large cask of water in which another cask of gunpowder, with a trailing fuse, was k i l l e r s h o w 66 suspended. The principle was that a fire would ignite the fuse, causing the gunpowder to explode and, along with it, the cask of water. Perhaps it was the flying cask shrapnel that gave pause, but the idea never really caught on. Late in the eighteenth century, at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, English factory and mill owners were the first to experiment with installing manually operated sprinkler systems. These devices consisted of multiple perforated pipes fed by a main riser, which was charged with water by a worker manually opening a valve in response to a fire. They were reasonably effective in dousing fires; however, damage to an entire floor or an entire building (and to its contents) from water could exceed the potential damage from fire. In short, these early systems were dependent upon human intervention for triggering, and they were nonselective in their application, wasting a vast amount of water where it was not needed and damaging valuable goods and property that might not have been in peril. In 1806, Englishman John Carey had a slightly better idea. He devised a system of water pipes with several ceiling valves held closed by counterweights attached to strings. When flames burned through a string, its counterweight was released, opening the valve, releasing the water and extinguishing the fire. It addressed the problem of wasteful and potentially damaging deluges; however, its crude reliance on burning strings and falling weights made for inconsistent performance (and, perhaps, stronger firemen’s helmets). What was needed was a truly automatic sprinkler system that would reliably discharge water, unattended, on only the area of the fire. Again, economic calculation became the midwife, if not the mother, of invention. Henry S. Parmelee was the president of the Mathusek Piano Works in New Haven, Connecticut. In the 1870s, insurance rates for factories were exorbitant due to the toll exacted by fires, which, once begun, more often than not consumed entire buildings. Parmelee addressed the problem by developing and installing in his piano works the first closed-head fire sprinkler, which he patented and called “the automatic fire extinguisher.” The Parmelee sprinkler head had a sealed orifice designed to open with sufficient heat. He understood that the only way to cost-justify his system would be to convince...

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