Ron Coleman can tell you the instant he became a believer in home fire sprinklers.
It was the early 1970s, and Coleman was a battalion chief with the Costa Mesa, California, Fire Department. Responding to a call, he arrived at the scene of an already contained home fire and approached his weary-looking captain, Ray Gallagher, in the driveway. A seasoned veteran firefighter, Gallagher was typically guarded with his emotions, but now he was crying. Coleman entered the home and saw what had provoked Gallagher’s reaction: the body of a 13-year-old girl, lodged between a wall and a couch inside her bedroom. Her attempts to escape the fire had led her there, where she died. Gallagher had a daughter about the same age.