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Major Dutch fire in university building

Why to use a fire sprinkler system

Fire has destroyed a high-rise building in the Faculty of Architecture at Delft Technical University in The Netherlands. The fire began at about 09:15 on Tuesday, 13th May when a pipe on the eighth storey burst and water leaking from it caused a short circuit and fire in a coffee machine on the floor below.

The fire quickly spread upwards through the thirteen storey building. Fortunately all the occupants safely managed to evacuate it. 185 fire-fighters with 50 appliances attended but were unable to save the building. The fire burned through the day and night with one wing of the building collapsing on Tuesday evening. The faculty, which had a library of 40,000 books, drawings, models and furniture, was preparing a new exhibition of drawings by Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier and others. It is reported that the collection, which was the most important architectural collection in the country, has been destroyed.
Early reports suggest that the loss in the unsprinklered building will be as high as €200 million. Meanwhile the 3,000 students are without facilities and final examinations are due in two months.

In The Netherlands there is no requirement to fit sprinklers in new high-rise buildings unless they are higher than 70m. It is to be hoped that the future generation of Dutch architects will learn from this incident.

Download the attached video of the fire - Keep watching - you will see a dramatic effect of fire on large buildings about 40 seconds in.

(Text courtesy of European Fire Sprinkler Network)

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