Residential Fire Sprinklers .com

Protecting Your Home & Family

By Marty Hope – Calgary Herald

It was the last session of a four-day conference in Las Vegas on fire safety and Murray Pound gambled that maybe, just maybe, it might be one he should attend.

He had no idea when he got up that morning that this last day of the World Safety Conference would present an opportunity to make a difference.

When he walked into the Mandalay Bay seminar, Pound was wearing two hats. The first was as captain and fire prevention officer of the Carstairs volunteer fire department. The second was as that of vice-president of operations for Gold Seal Master Builder.

“That last session was on sprinklers,” Pound says. “I’d been brought up in the industry to believe sprinklers are bad in single-detached homes, I heard all the negative stuff about them. But after that two-hour session, I made a 180-degree turn on the matter.”

In 120 minutes of listening to what seminar speakers had to say, Pound came away having made the decision that all the homes his Carstairs-based company builds would be designed to include sprinklers.

Pound, who is also a past-chair of the smoke alarm committee for the CHBA-Calgary Region, says he had considered using sprinklers several years ago but didn’t have any details.

“The one thing I don’t have to worry about is a customer dying from fire-related injuries in one of my homes,” he says, adding the involved trades are already undergoing required updating to ensure the sprinkler systems are properly installed.

While all Gold Seal homes will be designed to include sprinklers, the final decision to make them operational will be left up to the home buyer.

There is an added cost that Pound estimates would be approximately $1.30 to $1.40 per square foot for two-storey homes, and $1.25 for bungalows.

There are some insurance companies that will give reduced premiums if homes have sprinklers added, he adds.

A strong housing industry lobby has clearly rejected the mandatory use of sprinkler systems in detached homes.

In 2005, the Canadian Home Builders’ Association came out against mandating their use saying: “For the vast majority of Canadians in newer homes, the risk of fire is actually relatively low. And the cost of sprinklers relative to those risks is very high.

“If people want to install this technology, that should be their choice. But imposing the high costs of mandatory sprinklers through legislation cannot be justified on an economic or risk basis.”

At the local level, the Canadian Home Builders’ Association-Calgary Region says it’s members build to code, and that it is left to individual builders what signature features they establish or which options they choose to offer in their homes.

As far as Pound knows, he is the first builder in the province to introduce sprinklers systems into new construction.

No centres in the province require sprinklers in detached homes, but Vancouver has had a sprinkler bylaw since 1990, and has reported no deaths since then, while property damage has dropped dramatically.

“How can I build without using sprinklers, knowing what I know now? My customers are my neighbours, and the last thing I want to do is a lose a neighbour to fire,” says Pound.

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By MARGARET GIBBONS – The Phoenix

NORRISTOWN — The Montgomery County commissioners want tougher fire protection measures incorporated into municipal building and fire codes in the wake of last week’s catastrophic blaze that destroyed two of the four occupied apartment buildings in The Riverwalk at Millennium complex in Conshohocken.

County Commissioners’ Chairman James R. Matthews Thursday said he has learned that Conshohocken’s codes did call for fire protection measures such as sprinklers in attics of wooden construction, but that the developer, O’Neill Properties Group, received a variance from the borough eliminating that requirement.

Matthews said he also has learned that other municipalities do not even have those requirements in their codes.

Matthews emphasized that the county has no control over building and fire codes put out by the state and adopted, sometimes with revisions, by municipalities. But, he added, the commissioners can use their position to rally support on both the state and local levels for tougher codes.

Since last week’s blaze, Matthews said he finds it “really unnerving” to look up at the common roofs of assisted living facilities, nursing home facilities, apartment houses and even business centers in the county.

He said he cannot help but wonder what would have happened at one of these facilities if a comparable fire, which became a “blazing inferno spreading from one end of the roof to the other” within eight to 10 minutes, broke out in the early morning hours and “involving a bunch of people without agility.”

“To hear from specialists that these code variances are tolerated in Pennsylvania where you end up with these fire traps, basically,” said Matthews.

“We have tens of thousands of people living under roofs with no sprinklers, no fire walls,” he said.

“I would think that if you are going to tolerate these wooden trusses, which also are known as ‘firemen killers,’ you should certainly have hand-in-hand a requirement for sprinklers in these common areas,” said Matthews.

Developer Brian O’Neill earlier this week defended the construction of his buildings.

“Buildings are designed to get people out safely and that is what happened here,” said O’Neill, emphasizing no lives were lost in the eight-alarm rush-hour fire that drew on the efforts of some 300 firefighters from more than 100 fire companies to bring the blaze under control.

Borough Council President Sandra Caterbone also earlier this week said: “every code that needed to be followed was followed.”

The fire, which was ruled an accident, started when smoldering sparks or molten metal, generated by an acetylene torch, ignited the five-story wooden frame-out of an apartment building under construction. The radiant heat generated by that blaze caused the roofs on the two nearby occupied apartment buildings to catch fire, burning from the top down.

None of the commissioners disputed claims that O’Neill built the complex in accordance with the requirements placed on him by the borough.

Commissioner Joseph M. Hoeffel III echoed Matthews’s comments.

With the millions of federal, state and county dollars spent on public safety, the county has to take a leadership role in pointing out problems in that area, said Hoeffel.

Noting that there is a growing trend to use cheaper wood frames and wooden trusts in the construction of large residential facilities, Hoeffel said that last week’s fire should serve as a “wake-up call that government has got to be stronger in the steps we take to keep people safe in such buildings.”

“Fully sprinkled buildings with fire walls to the roof seem to be a minimum requirement, not something that is optional,” said Hoeffel, recommending that the county planning commission develop model fire protection codes that can be adopted by municipalities.

“As good as we are at organizing, as good as we are at response, as professional as our fire companies are, are we giving them an added burden, are we exposing our elderly, are we exposing our citizens to dire straits if we don’t look at something in terms of code improvement or spurring the debate,” Matthews asked county Public Safety Director Tom Sullivan.

“I have long been an advocate of fully sprinklering buildings,” Sullivan responded. “These buildings are constructed with lightweight wooden trusses and when one truss fails, they all usually fail and that occurs with some frequency across the country and firefighters do die in those buildings.”

“Fully sprinklered buildings are safe buildings,” said Sullivan.

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By John Ford – Neosho Daily News

A state legislative committee is at odds over the phrasing of part of a new law enacted to improve fire safety at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities in Missouri.

The Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, a legislative panel made up of six Republicans and four Democrats that reviews new laws, recently rejected safety standards at Missouri group homes.

The measure would require long term care facilities to install smoke detectors throughout the facility by the end of the year, and would later require the installation of sprinkler systems, fire alarms in smaller facilities and smoke stop partitions. It was originally sponsored by state Rep. Kevin Wilson, R-Neosho, in response to the November 2006 fire at the Anderson Guest House that claimed the lives of 11 people, and was signed into law last summer by Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt..

“They (JCAR) are not gutting the bill,” said Wilson. “They rejected the initial rules. What they were concerned about is the definition of ‘throughout the facility’ as far as smoke detectors. That’s the crux of the matter. The state fire marshal’s office says ‘throughout the facility’ means smoke detectors in every room.”

However, Wilson said, the nursing home industry says federal standards on smoke detector placement should apply. According to Randy Cole, the state fire marshal, this means smoke detectors would be placed on 30-foot centers, or about 21 feet apart.

Cole said state statutes clearly mandate that long-term care facilities be equipped with a complete fire alarm system including, but not limited to, interconnected smoke detectors throughout the facility, automatic transmission to the fire department, dispatching agency or central monitoring company, manual pull stations at each required exit and attendant’s station, heat detectors and audible and visual alarm indicators.

“Their (JCAR’s) definition is obviously different from what we felt this section requires,” Cole said. “That section states a complete fire alarm throughout the facility. Our take is that facilities must have smoke detectors in every room, even though the facility has sprinkler systems.”

Cole said smoke detectors, even battery operated ones commonly available at hardware and department stores, are the first line of defense in detecting fires. This is because sprinkler systems are heat activated at temperatures ranging from 135 to 165 degrees Fahrenheit, based on their rating.

“Obviously, a smoke detector gives earlier detection as to fire,” he said. “Federal standards as outlined by the Center for Medicaid Services commonly require at least a battery operated smoke detector in every room. The direction JCAR is taking is requiring for such detectors in hallways and considering 30-foot centers, or one every 21 feet since a smoke detector has the capacity to operate in a 21-foot radius.”

Under the new law, smoke detectors will have to be in place in all long-term care facilities by the end of the year. This could cause a dilemma, Wilson said.

“The Department of Health and Senior Services will have to ask the Secretary of State office for emergency rules, as smoke detectors have to be in place by the end of the year,” Wilson said.

“The state fire marshal’s office, obviously, felt like there needed to be smoke detectors in every room. I’m very hopeful that they will come to some kind of consensus by the end of the year.

“It was disheartening when I first heard they had rejected the order, as I understood there was some disagreement between Health and Senior Services and the state fire marshal’s office. But the bill itself, they can’t change the law.”

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Daily Comet

Officials say a 4-year-old boy playing with a cigarette lighter set fire to a bedroom in a Tampa apartment. No one was injured.

Firefighters responded, but a sprinkler had already controlled the blaze.

The Tampa Fire Marshal’s Office reported that a man was at home with her grandson when he came out of the bedroom crying. Authorities say he admitted setting the bed on fire. Damage was estimated at $15,000. The boy will be referred to the Juvenile Firesetters Program.

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BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA AND GINA DAMRON – Detroit Free Press

Fire caused more than $50,000 in damage and displaced nearly 40 residents in Auburn Hills this morning.

“I smelled smoke and it woke me up,” said James Sparks, 72, who has lived in the Auburn Hills Apartments in the building at 2819 Patrick Henry since 1981. “Then they said ‘get out.’ ”

Lt. Casimir Miarka said the 5:40 a.m. fire at the Auburn Hills Apartments likely started in the basement of the building near the storage or laundry room areas.

He said the building was evacuated and an employee at the complex said at 1:15 p.m. that tenants had not yet been allowed back in.

A second-floor apartment in the multi-home building was totaled, with smoke scarring the façade outside. The area under it, just below ground level, was severely damaged and smoke permeated a number of other apartments, Auburn Hills Deputy Fire Chief John Burmeister said.

“I thought someone was arguing with the cops,” said building resident Kyle Babcock, 22, a medical laboratory science student at nearby Oakland University, about hearing firefighters in the hallway near dawn. “I opened the door and they said ‘Get out!’”

The apartment complex is home to many college students, Miarka said.

Firefighters were putting out hot spots and clearing smoke from the building until just after 11 a.m.

The building did not have sprinklers due to its age, which predates sprinkler requirements, Burmeister said.

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Post-Bulletin

Two fires in Rochester were limited when sprinkler systems were able to contain flames until firefighters arrived.

The first incident occurred about 7:30 p.m. Monday at 2076 11th Ave. S.E., Unit A. A pot left cooking on a stove apparently started the fire in the condo. The sprinkler system put the fire out, said fire marshal Vance Swisher.

However, water from the sprinklers seeped into two other condo units, Swisher said, which resulted in damage estimated at $10,000.

In the second incident, smoke began filling Kindercare Learning Center, 2460 Clare Lane N.E., about 8 a.m. Tuesday. Firefighters said combustible storage materials were placed too close to a water heater. The children were evacuated.

The building’s sprinklers put out the fire, Swisher said. No one was injured; damage has been estimated at $3,000 to $5,000.

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By Margaret Gibbons – Pottstown Mercury

NORRISTOWN – Alleging the inferno at a Conshohocken apartment complex could have been prevented, a Philadelphia law firm filed a civil lawsuit Monday claiming negligence by the developer, construction managers, contractors and complex management.

The lawsuit, filed in Montgomery County Court and naming five specific plaintiffs, is seeking class action status to represent the hundreds of residents at the Riverwalk at Millennium complex who sustained damages in the eight-alarm fire.

Last Wednesday’s fire, which required the efforts of more than 300 firefighters to bring under control, destroyed two occupied apartment buildings and one apartment building under construction. The blaze, which was ruled accidental, broke out in the five-story wood frame building under construction and then quickly spread to the two occupied buildings.

Some 345 people initially were displaced but those in two unaffected buildings were allowed back on Sunday. However, the fire consumed a combined 180 units in two other buildings, according to officials.

“It is clear that neither the project under construction nor the Riverwalk complex that was occupied were built to avoid a foreseeable catastrophic fire,” said Larry Bendesky, a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky and co-counsel in the litigation with lead counsel Robert J. Mongeluzzi.

“As we have observed in similar disasters, this represents a complete failure to prevent an easily preventable calamity,” said Bendesky.

Named as defendants in the litigation are: O’Neill Properties Group of Upper Merion, the developer and former owner of the Riverwalk buildings and the developer of the under-construction Stables apartment building; Merion Construction Inc., listed at the same Upper Merion address, and L21 Construction Managers of Leesport, both of which are listed as construction managers/general contractors for The Stables building; Cavan Construction of Aston, a subcontractor whose employees are alleged to have accidentally started the fire; and, Bozzuto Corp. of Maryland, who took over management of the Riverwalk complex after O’Neill sold its interest.

The lawsuit contains numerous allegations against multiple and individual defendants.

These allegations range from failing to properly supervise workers at the construction site to failing to consider fire protection implications of building a five-story wood-frame construction residential structure to failing to install sprinklers and firewalls in the attic of the Riverwalk buildings and failing to inform residents of this lack.

Many of these allegations will be fleshed out during the litigation, according to Mongeluzzi.

“We have assembled a team that includes leading construction and fire prevention system engineers and we will get to the bottom of this and obtain justice for the victims,” said Mongeluzzi.

One area on which this team will focus is the relationship between O’Neill Properties and Merion Construction, according to Mongeluzzi.

“It is the role of the general contractor to act independently to ensure the safety of the construction site,” said Mongeluzzi. “However, in this case, Merion is a wholly owned subsidiary of O’Neill Properties.”

“Unfortunately, in all these types of tragedies that occur, there always seems to be a place for the plaintiffs’ lawyers,” said O’Neill Properties Chairman Brian O’Neill when asked about the lawsuit. “Our attorneys will be responding to the lawsuit and, other than that, I have no comment.”

“This looks to be just a freak accident,” said O’Neill, adding that his company already has put together its own team of outside experts to review the incident.

Questioned about the use of wood framing, O’Neill responded that 95 percent of all residential buildings have wood framing.

Sever years ago, the building industry was looking into using chemically treated and pressure treated wood for fire safety. However, after believing it had found the solution, the industry subsequently learned that the treated wood was found to have carcinogens that released into the air in completed dwellings, according to O’Neill. Since that time, treated wood has been banned for construction.

O’Neill defended his buildings.

“Buildings are designed to get people out safely and that is what happened here,” said O’Neill.

Both O’Neill and Conshohocken Council President Sandra Caterbone maintained that all of the buildings in question were built in accordance with the borough’s building and fire codes.

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By Robert Jordan – Valley Times

PLEASANTON — Announcing residential fires in the city isn’t in Phil Blank’s job description.

But for the past three years, the chairman of the city’s Planning Commission has brought up the subject every time a residential fire occurs. Wednesday’s meeting was no exception, as Blank noted that a fire Tuesday had caused an estimated $485,000 damage to a west side condo.

Blank hopes he won’t have to broach the topic again if the city adopts a residential sprinkler ordinance for all new homes built in Pleasanton.

“Livermore already has it, and they have not had a single fatality,” Blank said. Livermore adopted its ordinance about 10 years ago. “If you look at the statistics, sprinkler systems save lives and dramatically reduce fire damage,” he said.

Blank isn’t alone in his efforts. He and other city officials and Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department personnel have been working toward getting the city to adopt a residential sprinkler ordinance that would apply to all new homes.

The city’s current sprinkler ordinance applies to all single-family homes of 8,000 square feet or more. The ordinance also covers homes located outside the five-minute response area and ones in high fire-hazard areas.

Pleasanton’s chief building and safety official, George Thomas, and Livermore-Pleasanton fire marshal Scott Deaver are working with the current ordinance and hope to change the language in September to require sprinklers in all new
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homes. No date has been set for those changes to come before the council for approval.

“There isn’t anything that you can do more for life safety than residential sprinklers,” said Livermore-Pleasanton fire chief Bill Cody, who has 31 years experience in the firefighting business. “Most lives lost in fires are in residences. That is where we want to provide the most fire protection, in addition to the protection that smoke detectors provide.”

Cody said that fires in homes equipped with sprinklers are smaller because the fire is contained to the room of origin.

And despite what people see in movies, home sprinklers don’t all activate when a fire occurs and flood the house. Instead, the systems in today’s homes are designed to go off in the room where the fire occurs. They are designed to keep the ceiling temperature cooler and to not allow the radiant heat to mushroom out and spread.

Concerns over water damage and the cost of installing sprinkler systems have been among the hang-ups in getting an ordinance passed. But both Deaver and Cody point out that most of the claims about water damage come from the misconception that all sprinkler heads are activated in a fire.

A study by Fred Benn, president of Advanced Automatic Sprinkler Inc. in Hayward and a member of the state fire marshal’s Automatic Extinguishing Systems Advisory Committee, found the cost of sprinklers for a new home with a mortgage of $400,000 would increase the monthly payments by $3.04 per month.

Deaver said there is talk about California adopting a statewide ordinance. Assistant state fire marshal Tonya Hoover, who once served as fire marshal for the Moraga-Orinda Fire District, couldn’t be reached for comment.

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By Jeff Gammage, Joelle Farrell, Diane Mastrull and Larry King
Philadelphia Inquirer

Investigators spent yesterday pressing their search into the cause of the massive blaze that lit up the Conshohocken waterfront on Wednesday night. But they can’t yet say how the fire started.

As scores of people milled at the site of the blaze, some newly homeless, many in despair, Gov. Rendell asked for a federal disaster declaration, which would allow the Small Business Administration to make low-interest loans available to people who suffered damages.

Conshohocken Fire Chief Robert Phipps called the fire one of the worst in borough history, in which the leaping flames were punctuated by explosions of materials at the construction site where the fire started.

“It went up like a match,” Mayor Joe Collins said.

Although police said yesterday morning that there was no sign of arson, fire officials later said they had not ruled out anything yet.

Yesterday, a pale blue sky hung over Conshohocken, making the devil-red inferno of the previous night seem like a bad dream. Dark beds of burnt wood, the ruins of a part of the luxury apartment complex, offered silent proof of the conflagration.

Remarkably, given the fire’s size and intensity, no one was killed.

The flames tore through the Riverwalk at Millennium, built as part of a Schuylkill riverfront renaissance. The fire began in a building that was under construction and quickly spread to occupied areas of the $51.8 million project, destroying two apartment buildings and leaving an estimated 375 people homeless.

The complex, on an old industrial site, was part of a riverfront revitalization led in part by developer J. Brian O’Neill. He built and then sold the housing development and currently owns the construction site, the Stables at Millennium, where the fire began.

Conshohocken Borough officials said yesterday that O’Neill’s projects were never cited for code violations. They were unable to immediately produce a record of inspections performed over the years.

At the scene yesterday, O’Neill said that although he didn’t know exactly what the borough regulations required when Riverwalk was built, his construction department told him “that everything was according to code, to the absolute centimeter.”

State Department of Labor and Industry officials said yesterday that O’Neill’s company had sought and received – after two initial denials – a variance from the Pennsylvania Industrial Board in 2003 that allowed the use of a sprinkler system a grade below the state standard of the time.

The variance allowed Riverwalk to use residential-grade sprinklers in return for adding more firewalls.

State officials said such variances were not unusual.

On Wednesday, O’Neill arrived at the scene as firefighters fought what became an eight-alarm blaze, helping to find food and water for crews and hotel rooms for displaced residents.

The blaze was declared under control about 10:30 p.m. A little after 11 p.m., as fire companies rolled up hoses, O’Neill optimistically described the devastation as “a temporary setback.”

He rejected any suggestion that an abundance of wood framing played any role in the aggressive pace of the fire, and defended the buildings’ construction, insisting, “Everything was done right.”

Mayor Collins said borough officers and engineers regularly inspected the site and found no violations. Sandra Caterbone, the Borough Council president, offered a strong defense of O’Neill: “He is clean and follows our codes to a T,” she said. “Whatever we want him to do, he does.”

The fire started about 4:52 p.m., sending a plume of dense black smoke into the rush-hour sky, disrupting SEPTA train service and slowing traffic to a crawl on the Schuylkill Expressway.

Yesterday morning, the trains and traffic were back to normal – it was people’s lives that had been altered.

At the site, some residents milled in parking lots, talking quietly or just staring at the ruins. One woman knelt on the pavement, sobbing into the shins of a friend who comforted her. Others seemed dazed, having lost everything they owned.

“I never imagined something like this would happen,” said one woman, newly homeless.

Officials said 11 firefighters were slightly injured, most suffering from heat exhaustion. Firefighters came from as far away as Pottstown to fight the blaze.

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of residents gathered at the Spring Mill Fire Company, boarding buses that took them to their homes in the two largely undamaged apartment buildings.

There they were to be let inside briefly to recover essential belongings such as medications. Residents were warned that their apartments would look “broken into,” as firefighters had smashed doors to search for people and pets.

The power was still out yesterday, but officials said they hoped those residents could move back in soon, possibly today.

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View article on tenants lawsuit following Conshohocken apartment fire

By Andrea Zelinski – The Times

With 80 percent of fatal fires happening at home, a new law is giving homeowners another reason to install an in-home sprinkler system.

Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a bill this week that enables fire protection districts to award cash to homeowners opting to add a residential sprinkler system in their home. But some fire district officials say there is no money for such grants.

“In most districts, it will be a very small amount of money,” said Charles Vaughn, a lobbyist for the Illinois Association of Fire Protection Districts. “But it’s going to be a reflection of what we will see in savings.”

With safer homes come fewer major fires, less manpower and lower costs to run the local fire department, Vaughn said.

Last year, 9,044 fires ravaged Illinois homes.

Sprinkler systems typically take 30 to 90 seconds to detect a fire before dousing it, he said. Sprinklers don’t necessarily extinguish the entire fire, but rather keep the blaze at bay, according to Deputy Fire Chief Jim Keener of the Bourbonnais Fire District.

“The sprinkler systems are designed to hold the fire in check until we get there,” Keener said.

Bourbonnais Fire District trustees don’t know how they would pay for the grants, Keener said, though they might try to lobby local lawmakers for financial support.

“Later down the line, maybe the state could provide a little bit of funds,” said the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Mike Boland, D-East Moline, who hopes fire districts can find local money to cover at least two-thirds of the homeowner’s cost. “Some districts would be more financially able to do it than others.”

Not all fire departments belong to a fire protection district. There are 850 districts throughout the state that could, with funding, offer the grant. Many of those districts are located in rural areas of Illinois, according to Vaughn.

Applicants would have to contact their local fire protection district to apply.

Prior article: Illinois Sprinkler Incentive Bill Awaits Governor’s Signature

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