THANKYOU MR. CLAIBORNE

Dear Clay: The report you sent me gave me some satisfaction. I did not examine the fire safety plan with great detail. What impressed me was that there was an attempt to make a total evaluation of the fire safety features of the high rise. The fire sprinkler system, named by the name I used (Life Safety System) was the centerpiece. I know that what I started would eventually be largely recognized as the future of fire protection. And I can say this with all honesty, if it was not for you and the BOCA organization, the NFPA and the fire insurers would have killed the Life Safety System before it ever got off the ground. Few today realize that, to the best of my knowledge there was not one high rise building within the United States sprinkler protected until I convinced Chief Condon of San Francisco to allow the copper LSS to be installed in the Transamerica Building in San Francisco.

I am attaching one of the many articles I wrote concerning “Systems Protection”. This 1973 article speaks for itself. Many adopted the term “systems protection” but used it without any clear concept of what the term meant.

Also I include a report on sprinkler protection for high rise buildings. It was during the 1950s that I first began to advocate sprinkler protection fir high rise buildings. I gave a talk to the NY Chapter of the SFPE on modernizing the sprinkler design technology and advocated sprinkler protection for high rise buildings. All the FPEs remained quiet during the talk and I thought I was making great headway. But as soon as I finished they began to attack me. It seemed that they were so angry at what I proposed that they would throw me out the 20th floor window (yes the windows opened in those days and windows were considered ways to get the people out when there was a fire).

Many years later I was talking to one of my classmates of the fire engineering course at IIT. I had not visited him in a long time and I believed any animosity over my advocating sprinklers for high rises was long gone. But the very last thing he said as I was leaving was, “I still believe there is no good reason to put sprinklers in high rise buildings, the loss experience doesn’t justify it”.

Of those who attacked me and eventually destroyed my businesses it was the FPEs, and especially some of those I went to school with, who did much damage. Rolf Jenson was like the “unbiased” arm of the fire insurance industry, he did the attacking that the insurers could not do because it was not “politically correct” to fight against a system intended to protect lives. Rolf showed up every time I seemed to be winning a point or two. A billion dollar industry was behind him. So after all these years of attacks I am getting some satisfaction when I see reports as the one you sent me.

The NFPA/UL/Insurance industry campaign to prevent the marketing of affordable LSSs including available water residential systems has, over many decades, destroyed nearly as many American lives as all our wars since 1900. This statement which will be ridiculed by the SFPEs will also someday be recognized as the truth. It is a terrible thing to kill children for perks, paychecks, profits and pride.

RMP