THE SMOKE DETECTOR LIES

The smoke detector fraud is slowly being exposed largely thanks to Adrian Butler and Karl Westwell of: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org. The fraud started during 1965 more or less when Joseph Johnson of PYR-A-LARM brought forth the claim that an ionization type smoke detector would warn of a fire even before an actual fire developed. This would have been a wonderful fire solution if it was the truth. Few know it now but this was a period when the virtual ban of fire sprinkler systems for protecting life was accepted by nearly entire fire protection community. One of the arguments against sprinklers was that smoke would kill the occupants before a heat detector (sprinkler) would open. The fact that fire deaths were extremely close to zero in sprinklered buildings meant nothing because those who would lie were in charge of the hen house. So, to put greater emphasis on the superiority of smoke detectors vs sprinklers the same people who were lying about the performance of the ionization device also were promoting the idea that 75 percent of all fires start as smoldering fires. The idea was that if most fire deaths were caused by smoky - but no heat - fires, the sprinkler (heat detector) would have little value. So, the smoke detector fraud did not begin with just performance lies, there was an overall strategy and scenarios that went into the schemes. Note that one of the ads I include shows the potential (desired) commercial/industrial market that was being sought. These types of buildings (hospitals, nursing homes, high rises, apartments, schools, etc.) were not being sprinklered The NFPA created a sprinkler code that made it extremely difficult and costly to sprinkler small and/or compartmented buildings. So the smoke detector con men were ready to take over this market for fire detection. Ironically, when the ion detector guys promoted the idea that smoke will kill before a heat detector (sprinkler) will operate, they forgot to mention that this was the type of fire condition that their device could not detect - cold smoke. What I still find hard to believe is that these con men could claim that most fires start smoldering (smoke but no heat) and therefore nearly all deaths are the result of smoldering fires, not the flaming fire. Even the fire officials bought this con despite the fact that probably 99 percent of all bodies that are carried out of a building are removed from a building that shows serious heat and flame damage. Where are all those deaths where there was only smoke, no heat? The con is still working today. So, why did the NFPA go with the smoke detector and not the photo plus the heat detector? In the enclosed picture you will see the creator of the detect the fire before the fire occurs theory, Joe Johnson. And you will see Frank Fee, head of a major sprinkler company. For more than 60 years a very small number of national sprinkler firms had near monopoly control over the sprinkler industry. A few owned a multi-billion dollar business and the regulations that required large steel pipe and ton of restrictive regulations kept the plumbers and the small independent -would be - sprinkler installers out of the industry. A very few sprinkler installers had a huge but very specialized market that was almost devoid of serious competition. When I created gridded copper systems with 1-1/4 horizontal copper or plastic pipe systems that had up to a 90 percent cost reduction vs. the NFPA system, the major contractors did not encourage the change that would make protection for the above mentioned building types practical. My true engineering of sprinkler technology was opening the door to the plumbers. And a plumber could install one of my superior pire systems at a fraction of the cost of the

NFPA system. So, the NFPA and the sprinkler firms put me out of business three times to keep the status quo. The enclosed picture says more than most people realize. RMP