As a conservator who has directed recovery operations from fire and water
incidents, and who has also had training in fire suppression and has fought
fires, I have some definite opinions about this question.

Wet systems with micromist sprinkler heads are my personal favorite.

Details are contained in my article, "Wet or Dry?", published in _Focus on
Security_, v. 5, No. 2, January, 1998.

In the same issue is an article by Per Cullhed, "The Linkoping [Sweden]
Library Fire.

Pam Endzweig tells us that the local fire station is only a block away from
the UO Museum of Natural History.

Briefly, here is what Per Cullhed has to say about the Linkoping fire:  The
fire alarm sounded at 11:08 pm [there were 400 people in the library at the
time] the local fire brigade arrived at 11:11 pm [3 minute response time -
very good]; for the next 16 minutes the fire brigade attempted to put the
fire out and then they were ordered to evacuate the building because the
accumulation of smoke gases had risen to the explosion level.

The explosion occured between 11:24 - 11:30 pm.

From that point on, the fire department concentrated on containing the fire
to the library site where it continued to burn until the next day.

The same issue of _Focus on Security_ has an article by Nick Artim, "The
Central Sprinkler Company - Omega Fire Sprinkler Problem."  In that
article, Artim reports "...an industry wide failure statistic of
approximately 1 sprinkler [failure] per 16,000,000 in-service units."

Not a bad record.

It is easier and cheaper to recover from water damage than from fire
damage; combined fire and water damage recovery costs come somewhere
between the two.

Jack




Jack C. Thompson
Thompson Conservation Lab.
7549 N. Fenwick
Portland, OR  97217

503/735-3942  (voice/fax)

www.teleport.com/~tcl

The lyf so short; the craft so long to lerne.

Chaucer, _The Parlement of Foules_  1386 AD