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Employee accused of arson after paper goods warehouse destroyed in massive fire in Ontario (abc7.com)

submitted 4 months ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/usa@lemmy.ml

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[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Anyone know why a warehouse full of highly combustible goods would not be required to have a sprinkler system?

[–] DudleyMason@lemmy.ml 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I'll be honest, my knee-jerk answer was "because it would be less profitable for the executives who never visit and are in no danger". But then I read the article and:

Officials said the building has a fire suppression system, which was operating but was compromised when a portion of the roof collapsed.

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Sounds like their suppression system was seriously undersized. I'd guess it was sized for regulation compliance rather than for what is actually needed for a warehouse filled with paper products.

[–] DudleyMason@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That actually makes much more sense than the "when the roof collapsed" nonsense, bcs a proper sprinkler system should have kept the roof from collapsing

[–] spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 months ago

The news always fails to mention that this kind of stuff is knowable. The engineers that sized the fire suppression system knew with some degree of precision how much heat the company's paper products generate when ignited. The system should have been sized for significantly more than that, specifically so a fire can't get out of control and destroy the entire warehouse.

The fact the roof collapsed stinks of cost cutting. Or maybe something just failed?. We'll probably never get that kind of detail.