Fire facts

In 2001, the National Fire Protection Association published a report on the performance of sprinkler systems in the U.S. from 1989 to 1998. The report divided system performance into five categories: (1) equipment operated: 7,421;

(2) equipment should have operated but did not: 1,451;

(3) equipment present but fire too small to activate: 17,474;

(4) equipment not present: 125,492;

(5) unclassified performance: 3,629.

The 16 percent figure is calculated by dividing the number of incidents in category 2 by the total number of incidents in categories 1 and 2.