Seniors advocate calls for government funding to make older buildings safer
BY BRUCE CONSTANTINEAU AND TIFFANY CRAWFORD, VANCOUVER SUN APRIL 5, 2013
One man was killed and another tenant was critically injured after a fire at the Elm Apartments in Langley on Wednesday.
Photograph by: Les Bazso, PNG , Vancouver Sun
Between 2006 and 2011, the death rate in apartment buildings without sprinklers 23.1 for every 1,000 fires
Compared with apartment buildings with sprinklers 2.1 deaths for every 1,000 fires
A seniors advocate is calling on the provincial government to follow Ontario's lead and provide millions of dollars in funding to retrofit older buildings with sprinklers.
The appeal follows the death of an 80-year-old man Wednesday in a fire at The Elm seniors' complex in Langley - a 30-year-old building that's not required to have sprinklers. Several residents were sent to hospital.
"We want the B.C. government to review fire safety in seniors' housing in light of this tragedy," said Martha Jane Lewis, executive director of the B.C. Centre for Elder Advocacy Support. "The government must be involved," Lewis said. "(Private owners) are not going to go the extra mile because it's costly to install sprinklers."
In January, the government of Ontario said it will give $20 million to seniors' homes across the province to install sprinklers in a move to protect vulnerable Ontarians. Although residences built after 1998 must have sprinklers in that province, they are not required in thousands of homes where seniors live.
In B.C., a change to the Building Code in 1992 made sprinklers mandatory in residential buildings that are four storeys or higher or in any building classified as a care facility. Older buildings don't have to install them unless they undergo major renovations.
Surrey fire chief Len Garis said a "strategic" approach to installing fire sprinklers in the most at-risk multiunit housing projects makes the most sense, because the cost of upgrading every building in B.C. would be prohibitive.
"We know who's at risk and what's at risk so we could probably be more strategic in any approach to upgrading strategies," said Garis, who's also president of the Fire Chiefs' Association of B.C.
David Killey, president of fire sprinkler installer Fire Busters Inc., estimates it would cost from $1,800 to $2,200 a unit to install new sprinklers in a 30-year-old building like The Elm complex in Langley. That puts the cost of upgrading all 104 Elm units in the range of $187,000 to $229,000.
Garis said the provincial fire code allows for the upgrading of "life safety systems" such as sprinklers, but the upgrades are "somewhat discretionary."
"The provisions for upgrading are not that strong," he said.
Garis co-authored a recent study that found sprinklers clearly save lives.
After examining 9,481 B.C. residential fires between 2006 and 2011, the study found the death rate in apartment buildings without sprinklers was 23.1 for every 1,000 fires, compared with 2.1 deaths for every 1,000 fires in apartments with sprinklers.
The death rate in all B.C. residential properties without sprinklers was 15.9 for every 1,000 fires and 1.2 deaths for every 1,000 fires in properties with sprinklers.
The study - Sprinkler Systems and Residential Structure Fires - also found that seniors are more at risk in apartment fires. Forty-five per cent of apartment fire deaths in B.C. between 2006 and 2011 involved seniors 65 and over.
Sprinkler systems were found to reduce the overall death rate by 69 per cent and when used in conjunction with smoke alarms, the death rate was cut by 82 per cent.
"Sprinklers save lives, there's no doubt about it," Garis said. "If I could do one thing, I would probably sprinkler seniors' complexes and I would sprinkler their kitchens, because that's where the majority of the fires occur."
B.C. Housing's inventory of 382 buildings in B.C. includes 12 that have no sprinklers and 63 that have full sprinkler systems, with the balance having some sprinkler installations.
bconstantineau@vancouversun.com
ticrawford@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
- E-mail this Article
- Print this Article
- Share this Article
Read more:http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Sprinkler+appeal+follows+fire+death/8199697/story.html#ixzz2Q7zQYwjc
No comments:
Post a Comment