Description

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona, USA.  May 22nd 2013. Well over 8,500 laboratory fume hoods and cabinets and hazardous material storage cabinets are now being protected around the clock by Firetrace® stand-alone automatic fire detection and suppression systems, with the technology having been adopted by many of the world’s most prominent pharmaceutical and chemical manufactures, as well as leading research institutions and academic organizations. 
   
Significantly, the system overcomes one of the most serious drawbacks of traditional fume hood in-cabinet sprinkler-head detection and dispersal systems, where the design of the airflow can result in heat and flames not reaching the top-mounted detection device in time to avoid severe damage and possibly allowing the spread of the fire beyond the cabinet.

Firetrace overcomes this critical shortcoming by positioning the detection precisely in the path that heat and flame will follow – behind the baffles and across the exhaust duct openings.   To do this it utilizes purpose-designed leak-resistant polymer tubing that is attached to an extinguishing agent cylinder.  This flexible proprietary Firetrace Detection Tubing is a linear pneumatic heat and flame detector that ruptures at the precise point where heat is detected when exposed to heat and radiant energy from a fire.  This automatically triggers the release of the suppression agent, via a nozzle aimed into the working area of the hood, extinguishing the fire in less than ten seconds. 

Firetrace systems are available with the most popular commercially available fire suppression agents, including the latest generation of clean agents – 3M™ Novec™ 1230 Fire Suppression Fluid and DuPont™ FM-200® – dry chemical powder, carbon dioxide and foam.  The selection of which to use is dependent on the nature of the particular fire risk and application.
 
The two systems are the Firetrace ILP (Indirect Low Pressure) system and the Firetrace DLP (Direct Low Pressure) system, the difference between the two being the way in which the suppression agent is discharged.   In the case of the DLP system, the rupturing of the flexible tubing forms an effective spray nozzle that automatically releases the entire contents of the cylinder.  While the ILP system also uses the Firetrace tubing as a detection and system activation device, the rupturing of the tube results in a drop of pressure causing an indirect valve to activate.  This diverts flow from the detection tube, and the agent is discharged immediately from the cylinder through diffuser nozzles, flooding the entire fume hood.  The ILP is the most common system selected for fume hoods, as it can be designed to work with the air flows present in the hood.

Firetrace can also be used to protect hazardous material storage cabinets.  In these applications the flexibility of the Firetrace Detection Tubing once again allows the tubing to be routed throughout the cabinet, ensuring that detection is at the very point where a fire might break out.

Intrinsically safe Firetrace – which requires neither electricity nor external power – provides reliable, unsupervised protection, safeguarding the fume hood or cabinet 24/7.  The systems activate only in the event of a fire, so there is no potential for false alarms or unwarranted suppression activation due to smoke or fumes.  In fact, there has never been a single reported instance where a properly installed and maintained system has either false alarmed or, just as important, failed to detect and suppress a genuine fire.  Firetrace is the only UL [Underwriters Laboratories] listed and FM [Factory Mutual] approved tube-operated system in the world that is tested as an automatic fire detection and suppression system.  It complies with a host of international standard and codes of practice, including NFPA 2001:2012 and BS EN 15004:2008.

ISO 9001:2008 certified Firetrace International has its global headquarters in Scottsdale, AZ.  It has a global customer base and is active throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia Pacific region.