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Water mist fire suppression systems are starting to be used popularly in large cities in Asia. If designed properly, effective fire extinguishment can be achieved by applying much smaller amounts of water. However, there are still concerns regarding the system performance, particularly when the water mist is not acting at the source of the burning combustibles. The action of water mist in a thermal environment induced by a gasoline pool fire in a room was studied. Experiments on smoke temperatures in the room and heat release rates of the pool fire with and without discharging water mist were performed. Fire suppression and reduction in temperature were discussed. Effect of water mist on the fire environment induced by a gasoline fire was also simulated numerically by a fire field model and a zone model. Discharging water mist at positions away from the pool fire avoided simulating the complicated combustion phenomena. Functional analysis was used to compare predicted results with experimental values. It is observed that the field model predicted results agreed better with experiments than zone model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]