DESPITE THE RECENT DEADLY MANSION FIRE IN MARYLAND, VIRGINIANS FAR MORE LIKELY TO DIE IN A FIRE THAN MARYLANDERS, BECAUSE OF THE STRICTER MD FIRE CODE REQUIREMENTS
January 29, 2015
WASHINGTON, DC – After six people lost their lives
in an Annapolis mansion fire, firefighters said sprinklers could have made
all the difference. Certainly this may
be true, on a common sense basis, but try to explain that to the 1,000
residents of Avalon of Edgewater where last week a fire destroyed 250+
apartments, all fully equipped with fire sprinklers.
The sprinklers are required in new Maryland homes but
in Virginia, one fire chief says chances aren’t as good.
Loudoun County Fire Chief Keith Brower says homes are built
with highly flammable materials, contain more synthetics and plastics than ever
before and are burning faster than even 10 years ago.
“The escape time we say has reduced from an average of
10-13 minutes to 3-4 minutes,” Brower says.
Sprinklers can buy residents time and contain the fire until
help arrives, he says. But unlike in Maryland, Virginia localities
can’t make changes to the building code and codes in the Commonwealth
say sprinklers aren’t required.
“You go rent a hotel room it’s got a sprinkler in it, ‘Hey,
you’re safe.’ You come home after vacation thinking your safe and your home is
not protected and that’s where you’re going to die,” he says.
He says all states typically subscribe to a national family
of code, the International Code Congress. At the latest national
hearings, sprinklers were included in residential occupancies in one and two
family dwellings. But Virginia does not adhere to the ICC code.
“In Virginia, sprinklers and other fire detection and fire
suppression features are governed in the building code. The building code in
Virginia is pursuant to state law,” Brower says.
State law doesn’t give localities the authority to change
the building code. In Maryland, sprinklers are required in all new construction
since 2004. Prince George’s county was one of the first in the country to
require sprinklers in single family homes.
“Townhouses and single familes are excluded in Virginia from
the building code as far as requirements for sprinklers,” Brower says.
Virginia homeowners can retrofit their houses with
sprinklers, but many choose not to.
Home builders in Maryland don’t have that choice. Former
Prince Georges County Fire Chief Ron Siarnicki says no one has died in a home
with sprinklers in the county’s history.
That fact alone, he says, proves sprinklers are worth the
investment.
“My guess is [they are] somewhere between 1 percent and 1.5
percent of the total cost of the house. So you’re talking about the same as a
carpeting upgrade. And the protection you get from that is 1,000 fold because
your family is going to be protected for the life that you live in the
house,” Siarnicki says.
Both career firefighters says they’ve heard a number of
reasons against installing sprinklers, the most common being the cost or fear
of water damage they’ll cause.
On that point, Brower cited an old adage in firefighting:
Things dry out, but they don’t unburn.
