Home Fire Sprinkler Week

Home Fire Sprinkler Week banner.

Home Fire Sprinkler Week is May 14-20, uniting fire services like Arvada Fire and safety advocates throughout the nation around the extreme risks of home fires and the need for home fire sprinkler protection. It's an important week for residents and community leaders alike to better understand how home fire sprinklers save lives and property.

Today’s homes are more dangerous for residents and first responders, burning faster and failing quicker. A home fire can become deadly in as little as two minutes. Homes burn faster due to modern home furnishings, more open spaces, and unprotected lightweight wood construction.

When fire sprinklers are installed, the threat is automatically diminished, preventing injuries, saving lives, and preserving property. By activating quickly upon heat detection, sprinklers provide much-needed time to evacuate and contain the fire, if not completely extinguishing it. Home fire sprinklers reduce fire damage by 97%. Most importantly, according to the NFPA, the civilian fire death rate was nearly 90% lower and the firefighter injury rate was 60% lower in fires with sprinklers than in fires without sprinklers.

Explore the information, resources, and videos on this page to learn more about the life-saving benefits of home fire sprinklers!

  1. What Home Fire Sprinklers Do
  2. What Home Fire Sprinklers Don't Do

Broader installation of home fire sprinklers would save thousands of lives. Installing home fire sprinklers uniquely protects residents, property, and the firefighters who respond to fires in these structures. 

How do they work? If a fire occurs, the sprinkler closest to it activates automatically in response to the high heat from a fire. That controls and often extinguishes the flames, reduces the spread of toxic and damaging smoke, and provides time for occupants to escape. 

  • Fire sprinklers save lives. Due to modern home furnishings, fire growth is exponential in a home without sprinklers. Today a home fire becomes deadly in as little as two minutes. Fire sprinklers activate quickly and dramatically reduce the amount of heat, flames, and smoke produced, allowing for more time and better conditions to evacuate. According to the NFPA, the 2021 civilian fire death rate was 89% lower in structures with installed fire sprinklers.
  • Fire sprinklers save property. When sprinklers are present, fire is kept to the room of origin 96% of the time. Home fire sprinklers reduce fire damage by 97%. In fires in unsprinklered homes, the toxic smoke spreads widely and more area is exposed to heat, smoke, and fire. This requires more water to be used for suppression with powerful fire department hoses. This greatly increases water and fire damage to the structure and contents.
  • Fire sprinklers save water and have numerous environmental benefits. Home fire sprinklers reduce water usage by as much as 91%. Additionally, greenhouse gas emissions were cut by nearly 98%.
  • Fire sprinklers are fast. Fire departments can be on scene in around 5-7 minutes and have water on the fire around 8-10 minutes from the time the call came in. This is quick, but home fire sprinklers are much quicker. They will control or extinguish a blaze before it turns into a larger uncontrolled fire.
  • Fire sprinklers are affordable. With incentives and possible insurance breaks of upwards of 10% depending on carrier and system coverage, home fire sprinklers can be more affordable than residents expect. 

Home Sprinkler Resources

  1. Home Fire Sprinkler Fact Sheet
  2. Home Fire Sprinkler Safety Sheet
  3. Arvada Fire Residential Fire Sprinklers White Paper
  4. Residential Fire Sprinklers Informational_2023-5-9

Residential Fire Sprinkler: Side by Side Demonstration

Residential Fire Sprinkler: 360° View