HI-FOG® extinguishes sauna fire in Finland’s tallest apartment building

On the evening of 9th November, the Helsinki Emergency Services received an automatic fire alarm from Iiluodontie 9 in Vuosaari, East Helsinki. The automatic alarm system was programmed to alert three different fire stations. Seven rescue units proceeded to the address with great dispatch.

Fire commander Sandy Nyman was on duty that evening, overseeing the city’s fire response activities. He contacted the Helsinki emergency center for more information on the fire and location, and learned that the alarm came from the Cirrus building, Finland’s highest apartment building. “Hearing this, I felt somewhat relieved because I was familiar with the safety systems installed in the building. I felt even better when I remembered that Marioff’s HI-FOG® fire protection system was installed there. I got to know the HI-FOG® system when Cirrus was being built, and became convinced then that it was effective.”

“When I reached the scene, most of the building’s inhabitants had already evacuated the building in good order and the situation seemed calm,” Nyman continues. "The fire alarm center informed me that the HI-FOG® system had activated on the 16th floor, so, following standard procedure, we proceeded to the fire location via the floor below. In the apartment from which the fire alarm had been issued, we discovered that the HI-FOG® system had activated in the sauna. We soon found the reason for the fire: the apartment owner had left a pair of golf shoes to dry on the sauna stove. There was no smoke at all in the apartment, and the sauna itself did not seem to have suffered any damage. Our time at the fire scene amounted to no more than about twenty minutes,” reports Nyman.

He continues: “Afterwards, I thought about how things might have gone at Cirrus if the HI-FOG® system had not been installed there. It would have been difficult to evacuate all the inhabitants of such a high building with our current extinguishing equipment and evacuation methods. As it turned out, I could write my accident report as follows: ‘Upon arriving at the fire scene the brigade found that the building’s fire protection system had put out the fire. The brigade inspected the scene: no further action was needed.’”

Further information

Tuomo Miettinen
Project Manager
Marioff Headquarters, Vantaa, Finland
Tel: +358 (0)9 870 851

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Sandy Nyman
Fire commander Sandy Nyman