New statistics released by the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government shed light on the real-world performance of firefighting systems – and water mist emerges as a top performer.
Between 2018 and 2024, data from more than 4,000 fire incidents across England showed that water mist systems controlled fires 95.3% of the time and extinguished them 58.6% of the time. Sprinkler systems, while also effective, had a lower extinguishment rate of 27.6%, although their control rate remained high at 90.7%.
In residential areas, the two technologies performed similarly in extinguishing (around 37%), but water mist had the edge in control at 95.8%, compared to 91.4% for sprinklers.
Max Lakkonen, President of the International Water Mist Association (IWMA), said:
“This confirms what professionals already know: Well-designed suppression systems save lives. Water mist’s edge in performance, combined with its low water usage, makes it a powerful fire safety solution.”
System reliability was high for both technologies, with failure rates under 3% (2.9% for water mist and 1.9% for sprinklers.) Most failures were due to fires starting outside the system’s coverage area or pre-existing faults. Where systems were installed in the room where the fire originated, their effectiveness increased significantly. This underlines the critical role of proper design and installation.
For more information and the full dataset see the press release of the International Water Mist Association.
