PITTSVILLE, Md. - On Sunday the Pittsville Volunteer Fire Department hosted a unique demonstration to highlight the importance of home sprinkler systems.
The Maryland State Fire Marshal's Office brought its demonstration trailer to Pittsville to start a fire in a room with sprinklers and one without. The room without the sprinklers burned for over three minutes before firefighters extinguished the flames. The room with the sprinklers caught fire for less than 15 seconds before water was triggered.
"Fires go in your house a lot faster than what they used to. Very fast. And you really don't have a lot of time to get out," Fire Investigator Kirby Travers said.
Travers says furniture in household are made of different materials than decades ago, so fires burn much quicker. A quicker fire, means less time for people to get out of a burning house.
"Sprinklers will increase that time by trying to control the fire while you're escaping," Travers said.
Travers says that's what prompted a law to be passed in 2015, requiring single family homes to have sprinkler systems installed. Since then, hundreds of new homes are equipped with sprinklers and fire fatalities have dropped.
In Wicomico County three people have died from fires since 2016 and no one has died during that same time period in Worcester County.
