July 31st, 2014
HOLYOKE, Mass (WGGB) — Two weeks ago, three kids and four adults were killed in Lowell when their apartment building erupted in flames overnight.
“One sprinkler head activated could have possibly kept that fire in check and allowed the fire department to do their rescue and operations,” former Holyoke Fire Chief Dave LaFond said.
But there weren’t any in that building, nor in a Northampton home that burnt to the ground last week. Now supporters of the proposed residential sprinkler local legislation hope the tragedy won’t be forgotten when legislators take up the issue next session. It would require fire sprinklers in all new one and two family homes.
“It would allow each community in the commonwealth to decide the level of fire protection that they wanted in their community,” LaFond said.
LaFond is now New England Regional Manager for the National Fire Sprinkler Association. He says in the 90s, Holyoke adopted similar sprinkler legislation that has worked in saving lives.
“You can’t buy a vehicle today in the United States without airbags. You can’t. Safety is not free,” LaFond said. “It’s 2014 we have the technology, we have the engineering skills. We should be building the safety components into new construction. It makes sense.”
But the Massachusetts Homebuilders and Remodelers Association disagrees. They write on their website that the bill “will substantially increase the cost of housing and serve as a barrier to homeownership for thousands of young families.”
LaFond says the price for sprinkler head installation is comparable to wall to wall carpeting and that the pipes almost never simply burst. He does believe to prevent further fire tragedies like Lowell, the legislature needs to act.
“It’s time that we made fire history, it’s time, it’s time we change the outcome of fire,”
Meantime, the Massachusetts Board of Building Regulations and Standards, a state agency, recently drafted a report questioning if the cost-impact ratio of sprinkler is valuable enough for legislation. Fire experts say if a sprinkler saved your loved one or your home, you’d likely say that it was.
ABC40 reached out to the Massachusetts Office of Public Safety tonight, but they did not return our calls.
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