Sample Presentation for Fire Sprinkler Coalition Building
Courtesy of the Home Builders Association of St. Louis and Eastern Missouri

Everyone agrees that preventing death and injury by fire in structures has been and should remain a priority. No disagreement. The problem then becomes how best to do this in a reasonable, cost-effective manner and in a way that will not compromise or thwart other important societal goals, like providing affordable housing.

I’ve noted to you previously that national statistical data indicates that for a $1,000 increase in housing prices, it is estimated that 2,747 households in St. Louis are taken out of the market due to their inability to qualify for the necessary loan. Nationally, the number of households is in six figures based on a $1,000 increase in housing prices. Some place the figure at 190,000 households, some place the figure higher.

Adding fire sprinklers to an average new home is estimated to cost about $4,800. Variables can make that figure slightly lower or a lot higher. As has long been the case with manufacturers and distributors of products, if they can get their products mandated in government rules, then they stand to make millions or billions of dollars on a recurring basis, as an industry. Hence, those who produce the pipe, sprinkler heads and other products associated with installation of fire sprinklers have a lot at stake financially in the issue of whether or not fire sprinklers are required by government to be installed.

Those interests know that they won’t get to first base with an argument that they want a law that mandates their products so that they can make huge sales and grow their businesses. So, they take the logical step of turning this into a fire safety issue. If they can make it sound as though people are at high risk of burning to death in buildings and their would-be rescuers (firefighters) are also at risk, they can get to first base and well beyond with that argument.
So those advocates have tried to use heavy advertising and other lobbying techniques among those who vote on building code issues. They have focused on the emotional issue. They have used statistics and especially graphic anecdotal stories of fire deaths in residential units whenever they occur to garner support.

However, there is another side to their selective use of data. In summary, fire deaths in low-rise residential structures are almost exclusively in very old buildings—ones that were built long before the advent of modern construction codes. The facts are that residential fire deaths and injuries continue a steep decline over many years to the present day and this is due to the much safer methods of construction with structures built over the past several decades. Smoke alarms, fire prevention and education are working. Data show that the number of additional deaths that could be prevented due to sprinklers for the added cost of installing them is absurd compared to the enormously higher number of lives that could be saved if the same amount of money were invested instead in auto safety, highway safety, air plane safety or many other areas of society where accidental deaths also occur.

Building code officials who work for local governments and for local fire departments and fire protection districts are the voting delegates at conventions which promulgate model building codes. These individuals and groups have received a barrage of lobbying and financial support from the fire sprinkler manufacturers and installers. Thus far, these conventions have continued to reject a mandatory requirement for fire sprinklers in low rise residential buildings. However, the lobbying to mandate them is relentless. Late last year, code officials attending such a convention rejected a proposal to mandate sprinklers in low rise residential structures. But now, at the “final action hearings” of the International Code Council scheduled for May 21-26, 2007, in Rochester, NY, they will be asked to over-turn last year’s decision and mandate fire sprinklers for low-rise residential structures.

The issue will be decided based upon which code officials attend and vote in Rochester in May. So, for St. Louis, it is a question of which code officials from which cities, counties and fire protection districts in our area will attend and how will they vote. The HBA is trying to persuade them. Of course many will paint the HBA as a “special interest” and we are. But our only interest in this issue is that we advocate holding down the cost of housing so that more people can afford to buy homes—that’s our “special interest.”

What can Focus-St. Louis do? If you were comfortable doing so, you could write letters to local governments throughout the region to tell them that Focus-St. Louis:

1. Has identified housing affordability as a very serious, critical need in the region,

2. Knows that small regulatory cost increases cause many people to be unable to qualify for home loans,

3. Knows that there is a proposal that would require fire sprinklers to be mandated in the International Residential Code (IRC) this May at the International Code Council (ICC) hearings in Rochester,

4. Knows that most fire deaths occur in older homes and that fire deaths can best be reduced by advocating the use of smoke alarms, fire safety education and other mandated construction code requirements that have evolved over the past 50 years such as fire separation requirements, fire blocking and draft stopping, emergency escape and rescue openings, electrical circuit breakers, capacity and outlet spacing. (This last item—requirements reducing the distance between outlets— has reduced the use of long extension cords in newer homes which, by itself, has resulted in a dramatic improvement in fire safety),

5. Knows that there have been failures of some sprinkler systems over time where there is not regularly scheduled mandatory maintenance, thus rendering a false sense of security in some fire situations,

6. Therefore, requests that their city, county or fire protection district jurisdiction send delegates to the ICC hearings in Rochester with instructions to vote against the requirement for mandatory fire sprinklers in low-rise residential structures and leave the question of whether or not to install such sprinklers in low-rise residential structures and option for the buyer, as it is now in almost the entire United States. Such a vote in May would merely be affirming and retaining the decision made at the ICC meeting on the IRC last fall.

Note 1: The IRC currently requires hardwired, interconnected smoke alarms to be install in all bedrooms, outside of them and on each additional story including basements. When one alarm is activated all other alarms are activated as well.

Note 2: The U.S. Fire Administration and National Fire Protection Association data continue to affirm that the vast majority of home fire fatalities occur when there are no operational smoke alarms. A 2006 U.S. Fire Administration study on the presence of working smoke alarms in residential fires shows that 88% of fatal fires in single-family homes occurred where there were no working smoke alarms.

Note 3: Perhaps the most recent and best long term evaluations of the fire deaths is from the Center for Disease Control that found that there has been a drop in the actual fire death rate per million persons from house fires between 1979 and 2003 of more than 58%. That trend will continue as more new housing stock is constructed and replaces outdated housing stock.