200 Homes get Free Sprinklers as UK tries to stem county's alarming fire death rate

200 homes in Derbyshire set for free fire sprinklers

Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Derby Telegraph

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SCORES of Derbyshire homes will get free sprinkler systems in a bid to cut the county's alarming fire death rates.

Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service will use a hi-tech system to identify homes that are most at risk of being involved in blazes.

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   The tragic fire at Hulland Ward in which four children died has been cited as one reason why homes should get sprinklers

Local authorities are then set to select sprinkler firms to begin fitting the life-saving devices.

The scheme is just one part of the fire service's work to promote sprinklers in the county after the deaths of 18 people in house fires in the past two years.

Most shocking was a blaze in January last year which killed four young children at their home in Hulland Ward.

Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service group manager Sean Wells said: "We are talking about targeting the very high-risk properties.

"Having a sprinkler is like having a firefighter in every room."

The fire service already has £200,000 from Derbyshire Fire Authority to spend on installing 100 sprinklers and talks are under way for the same amount again for another 100 to come from the county's county, city and district councils.

Each sprinkler system would cost £2,000 to fit.

Mr Wells said the homes would be selected using a computer system which would zero in on properties considered most at risk.

This would take into account data such as previous fires, information on if occupiers were disabled and deprivation statistics.

Mr Wells said: "In areas of high deprivation, you're more likely to find people have other things to worry about than spending money on alarms or sprinklers."

The fire service is already campaigning for people to sign an online petition calling for sprinklers to be made compulsory by law in all new dwellings. This has 1,248 signatures nationwide so far and is open until August.

Mr Wells revealed that the fire service has also asked the county's councils to make changes to the way they deal with planning applications so that new homes are more likely to have sprinklers.

He said these could see authorities having to consider whether sprinkler systems are included in plans when picking a developer to take on a major project.

Mr Wells said the fire service also wanted local authorities to work with developers to persuade them to make new homes "sprinkler-ready".

This, he said, meant that the homes mains water would have to be pumped around the new homes at a pressure which meant they could have sprinkler systems fitted without modification.

A spokeswoman for Derbyshire Dales District Council, which has Hulland Ward in its area, said the £20,000 for which it had been asked could come from the new Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL).

This sees developers charged a certain amount of money for community investment per home for which they get planning permission.

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£2,000 sprinkler systems to be fitted at high-risk homes

Published on Tuesday 7 February 2012 06:00

Sprinkler systems are to be fitted in the homes of immobile elderly people in Hull as part of efforts to cut fire deaths.

Although the numbers of house fires have fallen, the number of people dying in blazes remains at around six per year.

Humberside Fire and Rescue, together with NHS Hull, Hull Council and the Safeguarding Adults Board, are to install 10 systems in the homes of people in the city in a year-long trial, with the prospect of hundreds more to follow.

The people given the systems have to be immobile, smokers and with a history of fires in the home. They may be on medication and they may also be alcohol dependent.

The cost of the systems, around £2,000 each, will be picked up by the taxpayer.

The system, provided by Ultra Fire Group measures just 6ft by 1ft by 1ft, has its own water supply, and produces a “gentle” mist in the event of a fire, creating a “survivable atmosphere for human life” in the vital minutes before firefighters arrive.

Daryl Oprey, head of safety at Humberside Fire and Rescue, said: “It’s not a deluge of water.This is quite an advanced system which is used in very confined spaces and creates a very fine mist which takes the energy out of heat and smoke and makes the environment more breathable. (The people they are aimed at) are generally immobile, spending most of their life in the living room in front of the TV, or maybe the bedroom if they are confined to bed.”

Mr Oprey said there were exceptions – three children died in a house fire in Bridlington in 2010 and Anna Carter and Victor Crowther, who were both 46, died in a fire at their home in Montrose Street last June.

But he added: “Generally you are more likely to die in a fire in Hull if you meet this particular criteria.”

Asked whether the cost could be justified, he said: “It costs about £1.3m to deal with a fatality. If it saves one life it will pay for itself.”

Wales last year voted through a law to make sprinklers compulsory in all new homes. The brigade has launched an e-petition to extend the law to the rest of the UK.