Who’s Who – IWMA

September 6, 2022

Iwma.net

Linkedin: IWMA International Water Mist Association

Address: Hamburg, Germany

Email: info@iwma.ne

International Water Mist Association explains the benefits of membership and the importance of water mist as a suppression system

The International Water Mist Association (IWMA) was founded on 15th April 1998. In those days the organisation had no office and did not initiate any events. However, there was a target and that was to bundle what was happening on an international level, to collect and spread knowledge and to communicate matters of common interest.

After some time of casual exchange of thoughts and ideas, IWMA held its first International Water Mist Conference. This event was held in Vienna in 2001. Its aim was to introduce the technology as well as the organisation to the world of firefighting.

The International Water Mist Conference is an annual event which has been held in cities like London, Paris, Prague, Copenhagen and Istanbul – to name but just a few. “In 2022, the only event solely dedicated to the water mist technology will be held in Madrid, Spain, on 9th and 10th November “, says Bettina McDowell, IWMA General Manager.

The technology itself was invented more than a hundred years ago by F.E. Myers. But it was only after the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in the late 1980s and a devastating fire on a passenger ferry in 1990 that water mist as a means of fire protection took off. The two events paved the way and made clear that there was a need for alternatives in firefighting. And thus, water mist as a fire extinguishing agent was re-discovered (which called for the establishment of an organisation).

IWMA was the first and still is the only association dedicated exclusively to water mist firefighting. The association is based in Hamburg, Germany. From its office it supports the continued development, research and applications engineering of generic water mist systems.

Members of IWMA are amongst other manufacturers, distributors, insurance companies, scientific institutes etc. They come from the USA, Egypt and China but also from European countries like the UK, Denmark and Italy.

Since 1998 IWMA and its members are committed to the technology and its further development. They have seized opportunities. Amongst those was a research project sponsored and organised by the IWMA on the “Scaling of Fire Suppression Characteristics in Machinery Spaces” carried out on behalf of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) where IWMA holds consultative status.

Members of the three IWMA committees (Board of Directors, Scientific Council and Marketing Group) act as representatives for the organisation in a number of expert and working groups as well as technical committees such as the CEN TC 191 / WG 10, NFPA 750 and 25, VdS 3188, IMO and EMSA (European Maritime Safety Agency of the European Commission).

The next two projects in the pipeline are all about data. One will be started shortly, will be ongoing and is to collect data on fire incidents. The other is a twelve-month project in co-operation with Fire Research and Innovation Centre (FRIC) and the aim is to gather information on the performance of sprinklers to quantify the consistency of the extinguishing performance.

For more news updates, check out our July/August issue here.