Notification systems
The early protection, disclosure, and suppression system for the facility may have been adequate when the warehouse was originally built and the contents inside were made of non combustible materials. As the building was renovated and additions were added to it the system was upgraded. It seems that all necessary components were upgraded sufficiently. The question is why weren’t any of the systems operating correctly when the power was out? For the suppression system, the pump should have boosted pressure and supported the sprinklers unless there wasn’t enough flow to start with. The pump may not have had a backup power supply to support operations during power outages; it may have been wired directly to the main power. Also the sprinkler system was most likely sufficient before the shelves were overloaded with combustible products. Overloading of the shelves caused the sprinkler flow to inefficiently reach the fire.
Protection, Suppression, and Detection
These are all small issues, but when combined they create havoc during a fire. The secondary power supply system should have been upgrade to power the system for 24 hrs at the bare minimum. This is well explained by the National Fire Protection Agency (2011) with “The secondary power supply shall have sufficient capacity to operate the system under quiescent load (system operating in a non alarm condition) for a minimum of 24 hours” (NFPA 72, p.40).