Most things in real life don’t happen the way they do in the movies. Fire-sprinkler systems are no exception.
In “Die Hard,” when John McClane holds a lighter to a single sprinkler head and the entire floor floods, when James Bond charges through the airport in “Casino Royale” and a torrential downpour overflows the hallways or when Detective Riggs in “Lethal Weapon 4” pulls a fire alarm to activate the sprinkler system throughout a Chinese restaurant: These are a few examples of how the movies misrepresent the true functionality of fire-sprinkler systems. While these examples might seem clearly unrealistic, they’ve helped shape the public’s misperceptions about how fire-sprinkler systems work.