ATLANTA, Ga. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Every year, fires cost Americans millions of dollars, damaging homes, businesses, documents and property that’s often irreplaceable. Consider the records at a bank, or the treasures in a museum. Fire science researchers have been trying to find a way to put out fires faster, with less damage to property. Now, they’ve come up with a new kind of fire suppression system -- no water needed!
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Historic treasures from the national museum of patriotism are stored in a warehouse, awaiting a move to a new building -- a safer building. Operations director George Wieder says a fire would be disastrous.
“Between the smoke and the water damage and the flames, it would be hard to imagine anything surviving,” Wieder told Ivanhoe.
For any business, or any person, with irreplaceable items or documents, damage from the water used to put out a fire can be as devastating as the smoke and flames.
Now a new type of clean liquid called Sapphire can be used to distinguish fires. “It looks like water but it’s not. It comes through as a liquid goes through the pipes as a liquid, comes out the nozzle in a vaporized state,” Steve Hansen of Ansul, Inc. told Ivanhoe.
The vapor stops fire in its tracks by interfering with how a fire burns -- stopping hot particles from turning into flames. This suppresses the fire and prevents it from rekindling.
“If there is an incident where a fire is detected the system goes off, the fire is extinguished and everything is nice and clean and neat and people can get back into business very quickly,” Hansen said.
Fire engineers say Sapphire is a cleaner alternative to old fire suppression chemicals like halon that were banned because they deplete the ozone layer and contribute to serious environmental issues.
With no damaging effects on water-soluble inks and a zero ozone depletion rating, fire scientists say this could be they key to protecting irreplaceable documents, historic treasures and the environment.
The information contained in the TV portion of this report was written with support from the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.
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