New sprinkler laws top fire safety improvements

Senior Citizen Fire Safety Task Force calls for short and long range solutions to reduce number of senior citizens killed in fires each year

The task force, made up of residents and county officials, outlined its recommendations on Monday.

‘‘It became very apparent given the urgent nature, the critical nature of our mission that we needed to try to respond...very quickly to what we believe truly to be an epidemic situation,” said J. Paul Thomas, the task force’s chairman and a retired volunteer firefighter.

‘‘If we go all the way back to 2000 and beyond, we have something like 24 or 25 out of 26 victims of fire fatalities were elderly people,” he said.

Six senior citizens have died in house fires since the task force was created.

The most recent victims — Osker ‘‘Craig” Reynolds, 88, and his wife, Patricia, 84 — were killed in a fire in their Baltimore Street home in Kensington on May 7.

Fire officials are still investigating the cause of the fire, but said it may have started with a faulty motor in a new refrigerator.

The charred walls of Reynolds’ home served as the backdrop for Monday’s news conference, where County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) said he was committed to following through on the task force’s 30 recommendations.

‘‘We have too many senior citizens that are dying,” he said. ‘‘This must stop.”

Solutions include short- and long-term ways to improve the fire safety outreach and building codes and implement new ordinances.

The task force was set up in June 2006, months after Joseph M. Walsh, 80, who lived on the second floor of an apartment building in Leisure World, died of smoke inhalation as he tried to escape a fire that started on the floor below.

While county officials study the feasibility and costs of the recommendations, Montgomery County Fire Chief Thomas Carr said that in the next few weeks, firefighters will begin to target senior communities, such as Leisure World and Friendship Heights, to distribute free smoke detectors and explain ways to prevent fires.

Such public awareness and education is one of three areas of interested evaluated by the task force, along with building and technology standards and community demographics.

An immediate solution for improving fire safety awareness among seniors begins with a dedicated senior citizen fire safety staffer in the Fire and Rescue Service to oversee the implementation of the recommendations.

One long-term recommendation would focus on teaching the elderly safe kitchen practices.

Thomas said the outreach is the key to starting a successful ‘‘culture of fire safety.”

‘‘We really need to mount a multifaceted, purposeful, multimedia presentation campaign to bring the problem to the citizens,” he said. ‘‘Unless we do that, then we’re not going to improve that horrific statistic.”

The task force also wants the county to provide seniors who have hearing or vision problems with a smoke detector tailored to their disability.

One short-term solution requires the county to develop a small grants program to help low-income communities to start fire safety awareness initiatives.

Improvements to building technology emphasized the need to ensure each high-rise building has a sprinkler system.

The county would create a program to subsidize sprinkler systems for not-for-profit housing providers or buildings where more than 20 percent of residents are on a fixed income, according to the recommendations.

Long-range solutions highlight the need for stricter codes to require stairways in new buildings to be wide enough (about 6 feet) to accommodate a wheelchair and fully equipped firefighter.

‘‘You have an increasing number of seniors in a much more congested area,” Leggett said. ‘‘Unless we take aggressive steps and do something now, we’re going to have a much bigger problem down the road.”

Increasing the county Fire and Rescue budget from about $189.3 million in fiscal 2008, which begins July 1, will be necessary. The most expensive of the recommendations would be retrofitting sprinklers in apartment buildings, said Leggett, Thomas and County Councilman Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg.

‘‘If we don’t subsidize certain tech advantages for them such as alarm systems, sprinklers or pendant alert systems ... then we’re not really giving seniors a fair shake at surviving a fire,” Thomas said.

Andrews said the cost could be huge. Regardless of whether building owners, the county or a mix pays for the upgrades, sprinklers are desperately needed in older apartment buildings, he said.

‘‘The big issue is the retrofitting of high rises, most were built before the requirements for sprinklers,” said Andrews, who worked on a bill in 2003 that mandates sprinklers are in all single-family homes. ‘‘There are dozens of high rise residential buildings in the county, ... and they have the most potential catastrophic loss life.”

13 ways to save lives

Create a program to subsidize sprinkler systems for not-for-profit housing providers or buildings where more than 20 percent of residents are on a fixed income.

Work with public utilities to alert county officials when utilities are to be shut off.

Increase the county Fire and Rescue Service budget to reflect demand and urgency of public education and related services.

Name a fire safety representative at buildings more than 75 feet tall that serve as senior housing, hospitals or college dormitories to ensure county codes and procedures are known and followed

Ensure that all new assisted living facilities, group homes and residential buildings install an approved fire sprinkler system.

Explore feasibility of a 911 registry for disabled or impaired residents.

Require all high-rise apartments and any buildings with three or more bedrooms have an approved sprinkler system installed within five years.

Mandate that residential buildings will have a contract to install a sprinkler system with a licensed sprinkler installer within one year of their license renewal.

Require that all licensed residential buildings install new or upgraded smoke and fire detectors to meet existing codes.

Install smoke barriers in new and existing buildings with 50 or more residents.

Mandate that all ground-floor panic and fire exit doors are outfitted with easy-to-see reflective markings.

Require that stairways in new buildings are wide enough (approximately 72 inches) to accommodate a wheelchair and fully equipped firefighter.

Mandate that buildings more than 75 feet tall with nonambulatory residents have elevator parts made of hardened materials to provide a safe emergency exit.

Report will be available atwww.montgomerycountymd.gov⁄firerescue