Grand Rapids' $250 million question: Sprinkle fires or fight them?
Published: Wednesday, February 22, 2012, 10:52 AM
A grant to fund fire-sprinkler education has Grand Rapids leaders thinking about how widespread installation of the systems could reduce fire safety risks and costs.GRAND RAPIDS – The city already isspending almost $900,000 on new “quick-response” fire trucks to help transform its fire department. So what’s another quarter of a billion dollars to the cause?
Grand Rapids is studying the role that interior sprinklers could play in improving fire safety in people's homes -- and cutting the city’s fire department costs. Estimated upfront cost for installing sprinklers in homes and buildings throughout the city: $250 million.
City Manager Greg Sundstrom admits “it’s an outrageous number.” Yet, could it pay off in the long run?
“Well, you spend ($29) million a year on a fire department. We had $9 million in property loss (due to fires) just last year. So numbers like $250 million aren’t necessarily unthinkable,” Sundstrom said.
“I don’t think it’s such a harebrained idea that we shouldn’t look at it.”
Michigan building code stops short of requiring that new homes have fire sprinklers. Among the possibilities for Grand Rapids: create a financial incentive for sprinkler installation in new and existing homes, or provide city loans that could be repaid over several years.
“It would have a significant impact on our safety in this community, but it would also have a significant impact on how we operate the fire department,” Sundstrom said. “The whole point of screaming 19 (firefighters) to the scene goes away, or at least gets reduced.
“I do think this is a way we can help lower our long-term costs and have people be safer. It’s worth looking at. We need to think out of the box.”
“I do think this is a way we can help lower our long-term costs and have people be safer. It’s worth looking at. We need to think out of the box.”
The city’s public safety committee heard a report this week from Fire Hazard Inspector Ted Jensen, who got a $1,000 grant to educate residents and builders on sprinkler systems. Grand Rapids in 2011 responded to 373 structure fires that claimed five lives, injured 28 civilians and caused $9.2 million in property damage, he said.
It costs $1.05 per square-foot to install residential sprinklers in new construction, Jensen said.
“It costs less to suppress a fire quickly than to let it grow,” Jensen said. “If we can get people educated on that, they’re going to want (sprinklers) more.”
Fire Chief Laura Knapp said retrofitting existing buildings with fire sprinklers would not prevent fires, but could reduce property loss, save lives and enable the fire department to change how it operates.
Knapp last year pursued a $1 million federal grant to put low-cost fire suppression equipment in home kitchens - the No. 1 source of house fires - but the city did not get that money.
“It’s about risk reduction,” Knapp said. “If every building in the city is sprinkled, you reduce your risk and then your deployment models can change.”
Officials said it's unlikely that Grand Rapids will try to enact any fire-sprinkling policy in the near future. But Mayor George Heartwell said he wants the city to revisit a former smoke-alarm law that was enacted, then later scrapped.
Grand Rapids in 1999 passed an ordinance requiring tamper-proof smoke alarms in every bedroom of single-family homes. But, less than a year later, the city repealed some of the requirements for existing homes due to criticism from residents who resented being told how to protect their homes.
“It’s one of those things I need to get back to and make a case for,” Heartwell said.
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