In the modern world, electricity has become an essential part of our everyday life. While it provides enormous benefits, it also becomes a significant risk to our lives and safety.
Every year thousands of people die, and millions of households are destroyed due to electrical fires, electrical shocks, and other electricity-related accidents.
All manufacturers design their appliances to reduce this risk; however, they still don’t know how to protect themselves from fires caused by electricity. Estimations from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission show that for around one-third of all fires, the starting point is from an electrical device.
Based on statistics, in North America only, more than 2650 people die each year due to fires, with around 20% of them from electrical fires. Grim statistics show that more than 60% of these deaths happen between 11 pm and 6 am, during the night time when people do not have time to save themselves.
One of the significant challenges in fighting electrical fires is that they can literally start anywhere in the house:
- old wiring
- loose electrical connections inside sockets
- frequent overloads
- old electrical panels
- faulty breakers
All these factors contribute to this problem. Moreover, they can start behind the walls, so it’s nearly impossible to notice them before it is not too late.
The process of electrical fires is quite simple: loosed over time connections, overloads, or just faulty equipment leads to arcing that ignites wires. Fire increases over time and spreads to the walls and furniture. After this moment– it is almost impossible to stop it.
In most cases, homeowners have to install sprinkler fire suppression systems that are very bulky, expensive, and unsuitable for many spaces. Also, these systems require regular maintenance, and the cost of ownership is very high.
Another approach introduced last year is to use fire suppression stickers. These are small stickers where the extinguishing agent is chemically stabilized, placed in polymeric shells, and pasted on an adhesive sticker.
The size of fire suppression stickers is relatively small, so they can be placed right into the places where the fire starts – electrical plugs, electrical panels, and different conjunction boxes. Stickers are fully automatic – high temperature and fire destroying microcapsules release the fire extinguishing agent.
This innovative product can be used to prevent the spread of fire in electrical compartments (home fuse box, battery boxes of RVs campers, caravans, four-wheel drives, ac/dc distribution cabinets, or fuel manifolds).
So, it does not matter anymore when a fire might ignite: it will trigger the suppression system. The impact on the source of fire and the speed in preventing the spread of fire shows impressive results.
In the future, we can see a widespread of fire suppression stickers and similar products being used everywhere needed and successfully address this issue.
