North Wales Fire & Rescue Service reports that they were called to a fire in an apartment building in Flint at 17:42 on 5 June. On arrival, firefighters found that two sprinklers had operated to extinguish a fire in an unattended chip pan. One man in his 70s was treated in hospital for smoke inhalation. No other residents were hurt. More details.

One of the many sprinkler myths is that they cannot deal with cooking oil fires. This mistaken belief arises because people know that pouring a cup of water into burning oil will lead to the water instantly boiling and spreading a fireball of oil. But by contrast, sprinklers release droplets of water which are too small to cause a fireball. Instead they cool the fire and suffocate it when they evaporate. Over the years we have seen several examples of chip pan fires successfully extinguished by sprinklers.