Fire sprinklers just are not effective Fire sprinklers just are not effective (June 30, 2004)

By Michael Lambert

This Tuesday, the City Council will once again take up the Menlo Park Fire Protection District's request to require the installation of fire sprinkler systems in new or remodeled homes, thus taking away a long held position by all building codes that this decision is left to the homeowner.

In fact, our building code provides a specific exemption for the requirement of fire sprinklers in single-family homes of any size because their governing boards have not concluded that the cost/benefit analysis would support a requirement.

In my continued search for the facts about fire sprinklers I came across a compelling report that suggests that what the fire district is telling everyone is again self-serving misinformation. At the last City Council hearing, I presented a report generated by the California State Office of State Fire Marshal titled "Structure Fires and Sprinkler Effectiveness" indicating that for the 10-year period between 1992 and 2002, fire "sprinklers controlled or extinguished fires" only 6.2 percent of the time. This report chronicled over 62,471 fires that occurred in the state in buildings equipped with fire sprinkler systems. The reports are the direct result of data generated and reported by the fire crews employed by the fire departments up and down the state.

The Menlo Park district, in numerous presentations, has claimed quite the contrary, with statements generated by a fire sprinkler industry front organization, the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition, that sprinklers controlled over 90 percent of fires, but offered no factual back-up. Somebody is not telling the truth.

From the city's most recent staff report on this issue, it is very amusing to see how the fire district attempts to explain away data on the 62,471 fires by saying, in essence, that the fire crews really did not understand what they were observing. Is the fire district impeaching the intelligence of the average fire captain?

This leads me to an interesting and perhaps thought-provoking analogy. The installation of fire sprinklers in your home is kind of like the purchase of an expensive sport utility vehicle. You think that buying an SUV will give you a silver bullet to protect your family on the road. We all are lead to believe that the SUV offers this extra margin of safety, and with it comes complacency; we depend on the car to provide safety.

But as we are now finding out, this margin of safety is a myth. Highway safety, like fire safety, is more than driving the most expensive SUV you can find, or installing that expensive fire sprinkler system. It's driving defensively. Fire safety is being conscious and proactive in making fire-safe decisions every day.

With many far more inexpensive alternatives that bring greater safety, I am not ready to place my faith in any fire sprinkler system to protect my family and property. Are you?

Michael Lambert is an architect who lives on San Mateo Drive in Menlo Park.

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