If one of your favorite movies includes Die Hard, Catch Me If You Can, Mean Girls, or The Terminator you may never be able to ignore their fire and life safety system inaccuracies ever again. Hollywood has created a few popular misconceptions on how fire sprinklers, fire alarms, and fire extinguishers function. After reading this blog, you’ll see past all the glitz and glamor and recognize other movies that have mistakenly used fire and life safety systems.
1. When one fire sprinkler head is activated all the fire sprinkler heads in the entire room or building go off.
I’m sorry to disappoint you but the scene in Die Hard where John McLean sets off all the sprinklers with one lighter can’t happen outside of a Hollywood studio. There are a number of scences in movies where someone lights a match or puts a lighter under one sprinkler. Then this causes all the sprinklers in the area to go off. This is completely inaccurate. When there’s a small fire only the sprinkler heads close enough to the fire can detect the temperature change. Once the glass temperature gauge on the fire sprinkler head detects a certain temperature, it breaks and allows water to flow through the head. Therefore only if the individual sprinkler head reaches a certain temperature will it go off.
2. Pull the fire alarm and the fire sprinkler system is activated
This would be a disaster if it were true because if there was an emergency that didn’t involve a fire the sprinklers would be causing a huge mess for no reason. Don’t panic, if you have to activate a pull station the fire sprinklers will not go off during the process. When activated the pull station sends a signal to the fire alarm panel activating the alarm which notifies the building’s occupants to get to a safe place. Check out this scene from the movie Mean Girls
Pull Station Activates Fire Sprinklers
3. Using incorrect fire equipment for the time period
In the movie Catch Me If You Can, in the scene where Frank first meets Brenda there’s a gray Notifier annunciator at the nurse’s station. At that time Frank Abagnale was considered a bank defrauder ahead of his time and the Notifier annunciator would have been considered the same if it existed in the 1960s. Having modern fire equipment accidentally in the background of movies happens quite often.
4. Using the wrong type of fire extinguishing to fight a fire
In The Terminator 3, firefighters put out a car fire using carbon dioxide fire extinguishers. In reality, they couldn’t put out a car fire. Outside of the movies, firefighters use dry chemical extinguishers or hose lines to extinguish this type of fire. In a real fire situation, using the wrong type of fire extinguisher could spread the fire, make the fire worse, or simply not put out the flames. Unless you’re the Terminator you shouldn’t attempt putting out a fire with the wrong type of extinguisher.
5. Using the elevator after the fire alarm or sprinkler goes off
There’s a fire on the 13th floor, the sprinklers go off and the movie’s main character jumps into the elevator. This would be an extremely dangerous feat if it was possible. But thankfully elevators won’t operate once the fire alarm or fire sprinkler system goes off. When fire and life safety systems activate, elevators shut their entry doors and descend to a safe floor on or near the ground level. Then it opens its doors to allow any passengers out so that they can get to a safe place.
These top 5 mistakes are easy to correct and future films can properly depict fire and life safety systems. Let this be a lesson to not believe everything you see in movies regarding fire and life safety systems.