Oh man, multi-tenant housing sounds like the worst case scenario for this sort of thing. I’m glad you were able to avoid any liability, trying to pin liability

Oh man, multi-tenant housing sounds like the worst case scenario for this sort of thing. I’m glad you were able to avoid any liability, trying to pin liability for rebuilding a unit on a tenant is insane. And yeah, the volume of water a fire pump can move is astounding. Electrical code requires the fire pump to be wired so that it can run at its locked rotor amp rating without tripping overcurrent protection and it’s usually tapped directly off the utility transformer separately from the rest of the electrical service. There’s also a smaller jockey pump that maintains water pressure in the system so that when the main pump turns on, there’s no lag with water coming out. The pump motor will keep spinning even if there’s a dead short if it’s fused right above locked rotor amps, since replacing a motor is cheaper than replacing a fully burned out structure and keeping the water flowing allows as many people to escape as possible. The feeder has to be encased in concrete or it has to be fire-resistant cable.