fun fact: the current record holder of the most accurate FA system in a modern movie is Hoppers, although there is no way you could hit the glass tube that accurately by accident. it also doesn't show any alarms.

FireAlarmDude5967 explained the myth of fire alarms squirting ink at you, and he also made a video of him making a fire alarm pull station that actually sprays ink at you.

Finally someone addresses these movie inaccuracies! As a fire alarm/suppression tech myself it always gets on my nerves seeing systems functioning incorrectly. I really enjoyed this video, super fun to watch!

OH WAIT I GOT AN IDEA!!!

If you got anything floral planted, use that sprinkler setup at 2:26 with a garden hose timer and an activated sprinkler head with the missing glass to water your plants. If they can put out fires, they can water plants for you.

This is what people used to tell my dad when he was in high school that the fire alarm thing would spray ink on it.

It also happens in cartoons with fire sprinklers there was one episode in Captain planet where the planeteers one of them used as fire Ring to create a fire and the girl used her wind ring to blow the smoke up into the sprinkler and it set off all the sprinklers in the building.

11:27 FireAlarmDude5967 even addressed this.

The original SpongeBob Movie had a scene where a bit of smoke set off all the fire sprinklers in the Cyclops' shop. As a kid, I believed that's how fire sprinklers work because of that scene.

17:41 Hochiki alternating tone in Jason Bourne? That is probably the most realistic fire alarm sound effect I have heard in a hollywood movie.

15:45 The ting on the panel to unlock it got me laughing

Had a robotics meet where someone had a battery short with some smoke but no fire, thankfully.  But they wanted to pause the event because they were sure that the smoke just hanging in the air would set off the sprinklers, and it was like talking to a wall to convince them it doesn't work that way.

When I was a firefighter / fire marshal we had a powder that we put on pull stations in schools. It would react with moisture on the skin to turn purple. There’s also powders that are only visible under UV  / black light.

7:57 As a fire sprinkler technician, I've actually come across a deluge system in the atrium of an office building once. I was told it activated with any one smoke detector activation in the atrium/lobby. We never saw it dump, the building owner wouldn't let us do it, but it was the only time in 25 years I've come across this.

Authorities can still figure out who pulled the fire alarm through fingerprints

2:04 this one pierces your eardrums

Station 19 when I saw that clip even though I don't watch it always gets in my head about it

im also a railfan, the only time tv production gets that right is if they actually film in a real station on a real train!!

In Twin Peaks theres a scene where a character lights a cigarette and the smoke somehow sets off all the fire sprinklers in the building? It makes for a really dramatic scene but that whole episode is really emotional and that just takes me out of it 😭

I’ve seen so many examples of fire sprinklers activating all at once in movies. Gremlins 2 and The Incredibles are the ones I can currently think of off the top of my head. There’s also a scene at the beginning of the first Blade film where all the sprinklers go off in the same room, except they spray blood instead of water (because vampires apparently lol).

Two shows to look into if you have the time:

Person of Interest - one of the main characters uses a FireLite MS panel as a security system in his safe house. He even uses the number pad for disarming the system. I believe it's only in a couple of episodes but a classic example of Hollywood using a fire alarm as a prop in a completely different way.

Burn Notice - I don't remember the episode, but the character hacks into a fire alarm system (which is conveniently located outside of the building) and uses the voice evac speakers as microphones (and actually narrates what he's doing) to listen in on what's going on inside. In theory, I guess this can work, you can use a speaker as a microphone, but I don't know if this would pass through the transformers on the speakers, plus you would be listening in on every speaker on the circuit, not just one room.

Fun fact: in Looney tunes sprink said " hay that looks like fire" 🔥 my favorite sprinkler scene 😁😂