My store almost burned down too

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

So.....

Just after 7 tonight. I finish my 15-minute break and visit the mens room before returning to work. There I am greeted by an odor reminiscent of spent fireworks and there is a distinct haze in the air.

I investigate and find a blackened piece of toilet paper on the floor in the last stall, along with a few small fragments of burnt toilet paper. They're not on fire but may be the source of the smoke in the air.

Luckily the fire burned itself out without causing any damage or setting off the sprinklers. I let the manager on duty know so she can ask LP to look at the cameras to see if they can possibly figure out who tried to light our bathroom on fire.

[Gilhelmi]

???????????

My best guess is that someone wanted to go home early and thought a small fire would do the trick. Not big enough to burn down the store, but enough to be investigated by police (effectively shutting down the store for a few hours). I did not say it was a smart plan, just the only one I can figure for a fire that small.

[Tama]

You know, bathroom isn't a good place to start a fire anyway. But it was probably what Gilhelmi said. They didn't want it to be TOO big.

[eltf177]

I hope management finds out who did this and presses charges!

[taxguykarl]

My best guess is that someone wanted to go home early and thought a small fire would do the trick.

That actually happened in a school where my mom was a teacher. Someone filled a basin with TP and ignited the paper. The fire set off the alarm, but caused no damage.

[Ashaela]

That's kind of creepy. Are there sprinklers set up in the bathroom? If there are, I would be worried by the fact that they didn't go off...

[NecessaryCatharsis]

That's kind of creepy. Are there sprinklers set up in the bathroom? If there are, I would be worried by the fact that they didn't go off...

A toilet paper fire wouldn't throw out a lot of heat, a lot of sprinklers are heat sensor. Sprinklers not going off because of a small toilet paper fire wouldn't bother me at all.

[Ashaela]

Ah, thanks. I was thinking triggered by smoke and not of the heat itself.

[Shalom]

Now I'm wondering if someone set it as a diversion, so that when everyone was looking to see what the smoke was coming from, they give themselves a five-finger discount.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Now I'm wondering if someone set it as a diversion, so that when everyone was looking to see what the smoke was coming from, they give themselves a five-finger discount.

That's working too hard. Trust me, you do not need to set up a diversion to steal from this place.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

At least you didn't have a bad a day as our favorite Clerks.

On a more serious note, at least nobody was hurt.

[Willowe]

I got a little worried when I saw the title of the thread, but I'm glad the fire was small and didn't really do any damage! Hopefully your manager is able to figure out who started it.

[ComputerNecromancer]

Ah, thanks. I was thinking triggered by smoke and not of the heat itself.

M0ost sprinklers use a bit of Woods Metal which melts at something like 140-180F (can't recall the exact temp).

When the bit melts, it lets two pices of metal fly apart. And they are all that is keeping the water from pouring out of the sprinkler.

Simple, reliable.

Smoke detectors are *way* too complicated for that use. And can fail in too many ways.

[KhirasHY]

M0ost sprinklers use a bit of Woods Metal which melts at something like 140-180F (can't recall the exact temp).

When the bit melts, it lets two pices of metal fly apart. And they are all that is keeping the water from pouring out of the sprinkler.

Simple, reliable.

Smoke detectors are *way* too complicated for that use. And can fail in too many ways.

Also, no company in this day would ever buy smoke-triggered sprinklers. In addition to being finicky, they can also trigger on a lot of false positives (like steam from a hotel shower), which would cause problems. On top of that, fire sprinklers are not dainty showers: they are designed to put out gallons of water in mere seconds. Tepid, smelly, stagnant water filled with flame retardants.

Generally speaking, in a hotel, a sprinkler that gets triggered generally will cause $10,000+ in damage every 4-5 seconds until it is turned off. Because of that, the only things that can trigger them are heat (I've heard 150º as an average, easy for a fire) and impact (some idiot hits them with a stick/ladder/etc).

[wolfie]

Generally speaking, in a hotel, a sprinkler that gets triggered generally will cause $10,000+ in damage every 4-5 seconds until it is turned off.

I'd think that it wouldn't be linear (as you implied). For any sprinkler trigger, staff would need to investigate to see what caused it, and then (if continued operation not warranted) "turn it off" by shutting off the supply valve to the sprinkler system (leaving you with NO sprinkler coverage until the head can be replaced - they're "one-shot" items). With the time involved from triggering to shutoff being a matter of minutes, that would result in any triggering being a multi-million dollar affair.

More likely it's any trigger will immediately (i.e. in the first few seconds) cause $10,000 damage (all "soft goods" and electronics in the room ruined, room needs to be stripped and renovated before it can be rented again). After that, it slows down substantially (i.e. only further damage is the result of leakage to adjacent and lower rooms, which is likely to be confined to small areas of those rooms).