On July 27, New Jersey experienced the loss of its 50th resident this year due to fatal injuries sustained in a fire. The victim was a 60-year-old woman from Essex Falls who died from her injuries 90 minutes after being pulled from her burning home at 2:30 a.m. Her tragic and untimely death, unfortunately, highlights a problem that is often overlooked and rarely discussed.
So often the circumstances surrounding these fatal fires are the same. A victim or victims are fast asleep and a spark becomes a smolder which begins to smoke and becomes a flame. These flames can double in their size every 45 seconds and can be accelerated by oil-based products and fabrics like furniture. By this point a working smoke alarm should have activated and a thick, black and toxic cloud of smoke would have filled the halls of a home. This would be a conscious and capable person’s last chance to escape. Flashover, the point in which the temperature of a room reaches critical mass and all things combustible ignite, soon follows.
New homes are built with adherence to strict fire safety codes, which makes that spark less likely to occur. That spark, however, can come from any number of things that a homebuilder has no control over like a faulty countertop appliance, a space heater in the dead of winter or an unattended candle. Once that spark turns to flame the lightweight construction materials that new home was likely built with burns faster than older housing stock. Critical support beams become consumed and collapse putting first responders and residents at greater risk.
This is why the New Jersey Senate needs to join Sen. Jim Whelen in support of his bill, S2316 (The New Home Fire Safety Act), which would require residential fire sprinkler systems to be installed in all newly constructed one- and two-family homes connected to a municipal water supply, at approximately 1 percent the cost of the new home.
We deserve to live in a state that adopts the minimum life safety code as a proactive measure to save lives from the ravages of fire and protect ourselves and our loved ones in the very places we should feel the safest — our homes.
David Kurasz
Executive Director
New Jersey Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board
No comments:
Post a Comment