Residential sprinklers prove their value

More than 4,000 people die in fires each year, the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition reports, and 80 percent of all deaths caused by fire occur in a residence.

Statistics like these have prompted the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA; www.nfpa.org) to revise its Life Safety Code to include a requirement that all new single-family homes constructed in the United States include an automatic fire sprinkler system.

Individual jurisdictions decide whether they will adopt the revised Life Safety Code.

In the Washington metropolitan area, most jurisdictions already have adopted a code that requires new single-family homes, apartments, condominiums and town houses to include automatic sprinkler systems. Some locations also require that sprinkler systems be installed in additions or major remodeling projects.

Homeowners should investigate these requirements when obtaining permits for their projects.

Gary Keith, NFPA vice president of regional operations, says that although the NFPA does not have an exact count of how many jurisdictions have adopted the policy, hundreds have taken this step.

No state has adopted the sprinkler code as yet, but Maryland comes closest, Mr. Keith says, because almost all its counties have made sprinkler systems mandatory in homes.

“This is a significant change in our 2006 national model codes, the first time that sprinkler systems have been required for one- and two-family homes,” Mr. Keith says.

“This proposal has surfaced many times before but never made it through the whole review process,” he says. “We adopted it this time as a way of trying to get off a plateau in terms of fire safety. Admittedly, there has been a significant reduction in the number of deaths due to fire over the past 25 years, due to public education and the widespread use of smoke alarms. But we are trying to drive the number down further by increasing awareness of the value of home sprinkler systems.”

Mr. Keith points to the irony that building codes have addressed the need for sprinkler protection systems in multifamily homes, commercial buildings and public assembly buildings for decades but that those codes have not dealt with the one level of occupancy where most people are lost because fire: single-family homes.

The District’s building code was changed in January 2004 to require that group homes have automatic sprinkler systems, according to Lt. Tony Falwell of the city fire department’s Fire Prevention Division.

In June 2005, the mandate was expanded to all new homes.

“The focus initially was on certain residences because of the makeup of their occupants,” Lt. Falwell says. “Automatic sprinkler systems can provide an added lifestyle protection, especially in homes occupied by mentally challenged individuals or those who are physically disabled. Sprinklers offer an early intervention. The faster you can get water on a fire, the greater the chances are of survival and of limiting property loss.”

Prince George’s County enacted a code requirement for automatic sprinkler systems in town homes on Dec. 31, 1988, and then extended the requirement to single-family homes on Jan. 1, 1992, says Tom Matzen, the county’s acting deputy director of the Department of Environmental Resources.

“Maryland also adopted a smoke detector requirement for homes in 1990,” Mr. Matzen says, “but smoke detectors work simply by alerting people to the presence of smoke. Sprinkler systems are only set off by heat.”

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