March 30, 2005

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Publication Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2005

Cover story: The heat over sprinklers: Life savers or money wasters?

By Renee Batti

Almanac News Editor

It appeared to be smooth sailing for the local fire district when it first introduced its proposal to require new and significantly remodeled houses and commercial buildings to be equipped with automatic fire sprinklers.

That was in early 2003. Atherton and East Palo Alto quickly embraced the Menlo Park Fire Protection District's proposal, and Menlo Park seemed to be on the verge of endorsing it as well.

Before long, however, opposition surfaced, and the plan sailed into unexpectedly rocky waters. Two Menlo Park residents were the first to raise key questions that put the brakes on swift approval in Menlo Park -- and that ultimately led Atherton City Council members to reconsider the issue and scale down the scope of the town's subsequently enacted ordinance.

The district's proposal called for requiring fire sprinklers in all new houses and commercial buildings of more than 1,000 square feet; in all houses and commercial buildings of more than 2,500 square feet undergoing remodeling or expansion exceeding 50 percent of the existing space; and in existing buildings where a basement of 250 square feet or more is being added.

After a second look at the issue, Atherton dropped the requirement for remodeled buildings, but kept it for new construction and basement additions.

After months of heated debate, Menlo Park last June rejected the proposed ordinance entirely.

(All new and significantly remodeled houses in the Woodside Fire Protection District, which includes Woodside and Portola Valley, must have fire sprinklers installed.)
Another look in Menlo

Now, it is likely that the Menlo Park City Council will reconsider the proposed ordinance as early as May, and questions raised primarily by Menlo residents and architects Michael Lambert and Henry Riggs will once again be studied and debated. Among them are:

** Has the fire district provided adequate and accurate information supporting its argument for home fire sprinklers?

** Will requiring sprinklers only discourage residents from remodeling their homes and upgrading other features, like electrical wiring, that would lead to greater fire safety?

** And, perhaps the thorniest question, are fire sprinklers in the home worth the cost?

For some residents who are planning home building projects in the near future, the answer to the last question may be a resounding "no."

But those who answer "yes," including the Menlo Park fire district, insist that the slow but steady increase in the number of sprinkler-equipped houses that would result from passing laws today will lead to significantly more home safety decades from now -- and that justifies the cost.

In local government, "everything we do in the community is for the future," says district Fire Chief Paul Wilson. "And we ought to do the same thing in fire protection."
Scaled-down version

When the question returns to the Menlo Park City Council, as it is likely to this spring, it will be a scaled-down version like the ordinance passed in Atherton -- applying to new construction only, said Chief Wilson.

The less-sweeping version will be a compromise of sorts, a result of talks between Menlo Park Mayor Mickie Winkler and fire district board member Ollie Brown.

Although Mayor Winkler voted with council members Nicholas Jellins and Lee Duboc against the ordinance last June, she says she is willing to take another look, particularly at proposed sprinkler requirements for only new residential and commercial construction.

"I spoke to Ollie Brown, and he indicated he has some new information to bring forward," Ms. Winkler says. "So I'm very agreeable to bringing it back to the council."

She sums up the concerns that led her to vote against the proposal last year: The costs of installing sprinklers in remodeled homes may be high enough to discourage people from upgrading their homes at all; the information provided by the district up to now has not answered some key questions about how a commercial building requirement could affect businesses; and, she is not convinced of the effectiveness and efficiency of automatic fire sprinklers.

Mr. Lambert says he plans to continue his fight against sprinkler requirements. He insists that forcing people to install sprinklers in their new or remodeled homes is the wrong approach, and wants to see more emphasis placed on monitored fire alarm systems, which notify a monitoring service that will in turn contact fire and police services if a fire breaks out.

Armed with reports and statistics he has gathered from various sources since 2003, he insists that fire sprinklers are just not cost-effective, claiming that the number of lives that have been saved by sprinklers breaks down to a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars for each person saved.

In terms of the property saved from fire by automatic sprinklers, he notes, "That's why I have insurance; that's why I pay a deductible."
What are the costs?

The cost of installing sprinklers during a remodeling project can vary greatly depending on ceiling type and other factors. The Residential Fire Safety Institute, a public interest group supporting built-in fire protection and fire safety education, reports that, nationally, sprinklers add 1 percent to 1.5 percent to the cost of construction.

Chief Wilson has said that the district got quotes ranging from $1.60 to $1.90 per square foot of floor space from companies installing sprinklers in houses built in San Mateo County.

Mr. Lambert says the average of three quotes he received for installing sprinklers in his own home was $3.95 per square foot.

Menlo Park fire officials doing a random survey last summer of home construction sites found three projects -- in Menlo Park and in unincorporated areas near Menlo Park and Atherton -- in which sprinklers were being installed, according to Assistant Fire Marshal Ronald Keefer. They reported costs ranging from $1.30 per square foot for new home construction in the 700 block of Harvard Avenue; to $1.59 per square foot for a home remodel and addition project in the 300 block of Beresford Avenue.
Effectiveness

While the general public may question just how effective fire sprinklers in homes and commercial buildings really are, one might have a hard time finding someone in the fire-safety world who would express any doubts.

"For those of us in the business, this is a no-brainer," says fire district board member Peter Carpenter. He's been one of the most passionate advocates of the proposed ordinance from the beginning, and is so convinced of the virtues of home sprinklers that he and his wife, Jane, are going to install sprinklers in their spacious Atherton home, even though they are not remodeling it.

Because the installation is a retrofit rather than a remodel, the work will be costly, "but as Jane and I are getting older, this is in fact a very cheap way to protect us from fires as we become less mobile," he explains.

Menlo Fire Marshal Geoffrey Aus is another strong advocate of sprinklers. He notes that in 2004, "almost 4,000 people in this country died in house fires. ... Even though we're one of the most industrialized countries in the world, we have one of the highest death rates in house fires."

Using nationwide information from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), a nonprofit agency that sets fire protection standards for the country, the local fire district reports: "Sprinklers typically reduce the chances of dying in a fire and the average property loss by one-half to two-thirds compared (with) properties where sprinklers are not present. There are no reported deaths in residences shown to have a properly operating fire sprinkler system."

Fire officials worry that Menlo Park's rejection of the ordinance last year means missed opportunities to improve fire safety in new residences, particularly with several new housing projects in the pipeline. Chief Wilson says the district is currently negotiating with the developer who plans to build more than 50 units on the old Consolidated Freightways property in the Linfield Oaks neighborhood.

To encourage the developer to voluntarily put sprinklers in the new houses, the district can offer incentives, including requiring fewer fire hydrants and allowing narrower streets, which would permit the developer to maximize land use, Chief Wilson explains.

Fire district officials look to a time when the majority, if not all, houses within the district have sprinklers, pointing to the city of Scottsdale as a success story. Scottsdale fire officials say the city's commercial and residential sprinkler ordinance has been responsible for greatly reducing the number of fire-related deaths and property loss in the community. (See separate story.)

How great is the risk?

Some critics of the district's proposal note that the small number of house fires in the district's jurisdiction doesn't justify the proposed sprinkler requirements.

But supporters argue that it's that kind of reasoning that leads local governments to the practice of "legislation by catastrophe." Menlo fire board president Bart Spencer likens it to the outcry for change that is often heard when someone is killed in an intersection long regarded as problematic. Although the danger has been present all along, it takes a tragedy to prompt changes.

The fire district reports that from 1998 through 2003, the number of fires in Menlo Park was 186, and in Atherton, 34. In unincorporated areas in the district, the figure was 74. East Palo Alto had 193 fires.

The number of people injured in those fires ranged from a high of 24 in East Palo Alto to 1 in Atherton. Menlo Park had 20 injuries. On Christmas day 2002, two children died in a house fire in East Palo Alto -- which may have contributed to the swift passage of the fire sprinkler ordinance by that town's City Council in 2003.

On Christmas Eve 2004, Atherton resident Julian Pichel, 80, was killed in a house fire that critically injured his wife, Cecile Henschel. After its investigation of the tragedy, the fire district reported that the death and serious injury might well have been prevented if the house had been equipped with sprinklers.
Atherton unlikely to review

Although the fire district board sent letters in January to both Menlo Park and Atherton council members asking them to reconsider their positions on the sprinkler proposal, it is unlikely that Atherton will reconsider any time soon, according to Councilman Alan Carlson.

The Atherton council had rescinded its support of the full proposal in September 2004, voting instead for the version excluding remodels from the requirements.

Then-mayor Kathy McKeithen said at the time that the building department should urge residents to install sprinklers when they remodel their homes, but she was uncomfortable requiring them.

Mr. Carlson, who supports the full ordinance, said the council has studied the question at length, and now needs to address other issues.


Fact or fiction?

Officials of the U.S. Fire Administration, an agency of the Department of Homeland Security, say there's lots of confusion and misconceptions about automatic fire sprinklers. The agency publishes a document listing what it terms "myths and facts." Here are some of the issues, in question-and-answer format.

** Q: If one sprinkler goes off, will they all go off?

A: Sprinkler heads are designed to react to temperatures in each room individually. Normally, only the sprinkler over the fire will activate. Data show that in residential situations, usually one sprinkler will control a developing fire; in commercial buildings, as few as three sprinklers will do the job.

** Q: Are sprinklers expensive to install?

A: Sprinkler systems have been developed that can be supplied by a home's domestic water supply. The cost is about 1 to 2 percent of the overall construction cost in both new and remodeled homes. The cost could be offset by savings in insurance discounts and through construction code options.

** Q: Aren't sprinklers unsightly?

A: Residential sprinklers now come in colors to match ceiling and wall colors, and they can be recessed or partially recessed.

** Q: Will sprinkler heads leak?

A: Sprinkler systems are under the same pressure as the plumbing system but are tested at two- to three-times higher pressure during an installation, making leakage rare.

** Q: Is it possible for the sprinklers to go off accidentally?

A: Loss records of Factory Mutual Research show that the probability of a sprinkler discharging accidentally due to a manufacturing defect is only one in 16 million sprinklers per year in service.

Spotlight on Scottsdale

When local fire officials are asked about the effectiveness of fire sprinklers in homes and commercial buildings, they often point to Scottsdale, Arizona, considered a national model in the area of fire safety practices.

Scottsdale's fire sprinkler ordinance, which affects all new construction and most remodels, took effect in 1986. Jim Ford, fire marshal of the Scottsdale Rural/Metro Fire Department, says the department's 20-year goal of having sprinklers in 85 percent or more of its commercial buildings and 55 to 60 percent of its single-family dwellings is well within reach.

During the first 15 years of the ordinance's enactment, the city cut its fire-related fatalities by half, Mr. Ford says. That's calculated on 13 deaths in residential fires during that period in buildings with no sprinklers, and 13 lives saved in buildings with sprinklers.

The number of "saves" is a conservative estimate, he says, adding that it could be as high as 40 or 50. The department counts as "saves" only those incidents in which there is no question that the person could not have otherwise escaped the burning building, he says.

For example, counted among the "saves" was a young man whose iron in the front room caused a fire while he slept in a room with no egress except by the room that would have been fully engulfed by fire.

During that same 15-year period, Mr. Ford reports, the average financial loss per fire in a building with sprinklers was $3,534, compared with an average loss of $45,019 for buildings without sprinklers. And 92 percent of the fires controlled by sprinklers were done so with only one or two sprinkler heads.
Acceptance

Mr. Ford says the community has come to accept the need for sprinklers in both commercial and residential buildings. "The debates occurring today are primarily political," he stated in a report detailing the sprinkler program's first 15 years in effect.

Regarding cost-effectiveness, Mr. Ford notes that before sprinklers were widespread in homes, the fire department would send three engines and take other costly measures for a typical house fire. Now, only one truck is typically sent, freeing up resources for other needs.

So when a house fire occurs, "the truck that didn't have to respond is now free to go to the heart-attack call," he says. "We're able to get to our medical calls much faster -- our traffic accidents."

Mr. Ford dismisses charges that the push for fire sprinkler requirements is instigated by the sprinkler industry, which stands to profit from such laws. Citing a number of fire safety professionals who were pioneers of sprinkler programs years ago, he says, "I know why those guys did it.

"They did it because they were tired of going on calls to homes and seeing the people who were lost."

He is frustrated that there is so much resistance to sprinkler programs throughout the country. The technology exists, he says, to improve fire safety for people and property in a cost-effective way. "There's a better mousetrap. What's keeping us from putting it in place?" -- by Renee Batti

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