Building Code Board of Appeals Agenda and Packet 2009 06 18

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Louisville Fire Protection District 5,000 Sq. Ft. Sprinkler Proposal and Justification I) Forward As outlined in the Louisville Fire Protection District (LFI'D) comprehensive plan and as discussed during the March 11,2008 work session with the Louisville City Council, we arc pleased to present our thoughts and recommendations for a stronger fire sprinkler ordinance. rirst, we must state that the all structures built in the city in the last 25 years have met the code of record. It is also our perspective that all the relevant codes were enforced and inspected as required by local ordinances. That said, it must also be recognized that the existing building and fire codes are only considered to be minimum standards and that the "authority having jurisdiction" may amend and modify the code as necessary. We fully realize that there could be some opposition to an enhanced fire sprinkler requirement: however, we also helieve it's important to rethink the way we protect our citizens and protect our firefighters. The Louisville Fire Department (LFD) strongly believes that a reactive fire protection philosophy is not what is needed to manage the impacts of fire on a community. For many years, the traditional fire service has had a strategy designed around the hope that fire departments could amass enough resources and beat the clock by arriving soon enough to have a positive impact on the incident. While it's still important to have adequate staffing to safely fight a structure fire, we also underst.1nd the inherentlimit.1tions to responding to larger structures without built-in fire suppression systems. Fortunately today, many communities are taking a more proactive fire protection philosophy by embracing proven technology and built-in protection, such as stronger automatic sprinklers. aggressive code enforcement. and stronger puhlic education programs. Obviously it's hard to say how many more lives and jobs could be saved by this new ordinance. However, we do know that of the several large- loss-of-life fire disasters (10 or more deaths) that have occurred in buildings annually, not one has occurred in a sprinklered building. We also know of hundreds of major building fires (losses exceeding $250,000) that have occurred each year, in which only one or two deaths occurred in buildings that had a properly installed sprinkler system designed to cope with the hazard and in operating condition at the time of the fire. In fact, most of the civilian deaths in sprinklered buildings were a result of flash fires where the room temperatures weren't high enough to activate the sprinkler head. We believe that this proposed amendment will not only reduce the risk and effect of fires in our community, but will improve firefighter safety and help reduce the demand for extensive resources for small to medium size structures. II) Problem Statement Many commercial structures in Louisville were built without the benefit of automatic fire sprinkler protection to control the amount of fire loss. We have provided four examples that we think would have benefited from the use of automatic sprinklers and, more importantly, would have reduced the firefighter and manpower requirements. III. Problem Analysis The fire flow required by a structure fire directly impacts the fire department's operation; specifically, the amount of fire pumps, water supply, and personnel required to extinguish the fire prohlem. Depending on the building construction and type of occupancy, the code allows for a maximum square footage before it is required to be sprinklered. The code also allows for additional square footage if the building is equipped with fire separation (e.g., fire walls and doors). While these features do provide