Group home sprinkler bill to go before council

Public Safety Committee is expected to ask for $250,000 to buy the devices in 42 group homes out of 285 in the county

Group home providers asked for county assistance to meet the requirements because many of their residents are being sponsored by the county or state, and, although private, the homes do not have enough money to install new windows and sprinklers.

The committee is chaired by Councilman Philip M. Andrews (D-Dist. 3) of Gaithersburg and also includes Marc Elrich (D-At large) of Takoma Park and Michael J. Knapp (D-Dist. 2) of Germantown, and is responsible for tackling issues with animal control, the criminal justice system and the Fire and Rescue Service.

Sprinklers and larger windows for evacuations are needed in many of the county’s 285 group homes, which don’t meet current fire safety codes, according to Michael Donahue, assistant chief in the office of fire code enforcement.

‘‘An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” Donahue told the committee during its meeting.

If approved, the $250,000 would be used to install new sprinkler systems and make wider, larger windows to help residents escape and firefighters enter a building during emergencies.

The money would go toward making 42 group homes compliant with current county ordinances. Andrews said the program could be funded again to service more group homes after a January progress evaluation before the committee.

Donahue said the group homes are found in areas along the Beltway and up Route 355 into Rockville and Gaithersburg. Most have three to six beds and house elderly or disabled people, which Andrews and Donahue said are the most vulnerable when it comes to evacuating a house in an emergency.

‘‘We want to find out those [houses] in the most need of assistance and target them first,” Donahue said.

Choosing the group homes to upgrade will be a task for both the county Fire Marshal’s Office and Health and Human Services department. Donahue said there would be more homes identified in the coming weeks.

‘‘There’s not one clear factor in the decision, and to some extent it’s going to be a judgment call,” Donahue said.

Group homes with a high number of elderly or disabled residents will receive priority.

‘‘People like you and I are capable of getting up and leaving when an alarm goes off,” Donahue said. ‘‘But you have some people...maybe the aged, that can recognize the alarm and leave, but are a little slower. It’s not like they can get up and run, they need to take their time.”

Donahue said the work will be done in phases.

‘‘We don’t want to flood the market and not have enough contractors to install the sprinklers,” he said.

Andrews said the cost of installing sprinklers varies from $2 to $5 per square foot per house, meaning an average of $6,000 per house.

‘‘It’s a significant amount, but it’s not a huge amount,” he said Friday. ‘‘I would hope they could be done by the end of the year, maybe six months; it’s possible I think.”

A law mandating that group homes be retrofitted with sprinklers was a suggestion from a senior citizen fire safety task force that issued 13 recommendations to improve fire safety among elderly residents on June 4.

The county has a dangerous situation with people over age 65 making up 12 percent of the population and living in 21 percent of the homes, the Senior Citizen Fire Safety Task Force reported.

The task force comprised residents and county officials, and spent one year drafting short- and long-term ways to improve the fire safety outreach and building codes and implement new ordinances.

Andrews said a large number of elderly residents live in group homes or high-rise apartment buildings.

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

Other recommendations from the task force include a mandate that residential buildings will have a contract to install a sprinkler system with a licensed sprinkler installer within one year from any such law being passed.

Another would require all high-rise apartments and any buildings with three or more bedrooms to have an approved sprinkler system installed within five years if ever the law would be enacted.

While group homes may be the county’s initial target to improve fire safety, high-rise apartment buildings are next, according to Andrews.

‘‘We’re the largest jurisdiction in the U.S. that requires all new homes to be built with fire sprinkler systems,” Andrews said.

Donahue and fire code inspectors plan to inspect each of the county’s 92 high rise apartment buildings, those over 75 feet tall, by the end of the summer.

County officials have found numerous fire code violations in the 47 apartment buildings and 115 commercial businesses.

Managers are fined for severe infractions like blocked fire exits or faulty fire alarms, and that money is used to pay for inspectors and testing equipment.

Donahue said county officials hope to work with building managers, especially those that house senior citizens, to become compliant with the fire codes and install full sprinkler systems within a decade.