The burning truth about home fire sprinklers

But what if there was a product that could save lives, protect firefighters, protect property, and reduce property damage? Installing a fire sprinkler system in your home could literally be the difference between life or death.

State Farm® strongly supports the use of home fire sprinklers and works with national organizations such as the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition (HFSC) to provide education and dispel myths about sprinkler systems. In fact, State Farm offers policyholders a homeowner discount if their home has a fire sprinkler system installed.

Home Fire Sprinkler Week is May 15-21, 2022. Co-sponsored by HFSC and the NFPA Fire Sprinkler Initiative, the week emphasizes the dangers of home fires to residents and firefighters and promotes the importance of building new homes with automatic fire sprinklers. HFSC will award thirty $500 grants to qualifying fire departments during home Fire Sprinkler Week 2022. The grants, funded by State Farm, will help fire department conduct community outreach or educational efforts about the benefits of residential fire sprinklers.

Benefits of a home fire sprinkler system

Home fire sprinkler systems are installed in the interior of your home and can prevent extensive damage by stopping a fire before it gets out of control. It also allows your family valuable time to get out of the home safely. While the purpose is to protect homes from fires originating inside the home, they can also be useful to protect a home during wildfires, as embers can enter through windows or vents, igniting objects within the home.

Consider how the benefits greatly outweigh the initial costs incurred:

• Save lives: Each year nearly 3,000 people die in residential fires. Numerous studies have found that both the chance of death and the chance of major burn injury drops dramatically in homes equipped with home fire sprinklers.
   
• Protect firefighters: When fires grow and hit a flashpoint, the safety risks to firefighters and the costs incurred while battling the blaze increase greatly. Nearly all national firefighter groups call for the use of sprinklers to help minimize these risks.
   
• Protect property: It is estimated that 92% of residential fires could be controlled by one or two sprinklers. Without a sprinkler, more area is exposed to fire, more water is used in the control process, and water and fire damages increase greatly.
   
• Reduce property damage costs: According to the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition, the average loss in a home with sprinklers is $2,166 versus $45,019 in a home without sprinklers.

To learn more about how a home fire sprinkler system could help protect your family and reduce damage to your home, visit the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition website. With State Farm funding, HFSC created virtual reality (VR) videos from actual home fire flashover and fire sprinkler activation footage. With user-controlled 360-degree, full-room views, viewers experience the fires as if they were actually in the room, seeing the fires and sprinkler activation from any angle. The VR videos can be watched with 3D glasses or headsets for an immersive experience as well as in 2D on HFSC’s website.