Deadly Hawaii fire raises concerns about lack of sprinklers in older high-rises across the US
July 16, 2017 by admin
Filed under Lingerie Events
Jeff Kim was in his two-bedroom apartment on the 33rd floor of the Marco Polo condominium building in Honolulu when a deadly, raging fire broke out.
The 31-year-old member of the Oahu Group Executive Committee of the Sierra Club, who has lived in the high-rise rental since February, said Saturday that he never considered whether it had a sprinkler system installed.
“I did not actually realize we didn’t have them,” said Kim, whose apartment is just a few floors above the units where the fire burned for hours. “I certainly think we should have installed them.”
As he slowly trudged up all 32 flights of stairs to his apartment Saturday, Kim said: “It’s got to be done.”
At least three people died Friday after the fire blazed across the upper floors of the high-rise, shooting flames and plumes of thick, black smoke out windows and causing hundreds of residents to evacuate.
The 36-story tower was not equipped with sprinklers.
The fire broke out on the 26th floor of the complex around 2 p.m. and spread to the 28th floor, Honolulu Fire Department spokesman Capt. David Jenkins said in a statement.
A dozen people were treated by paramedics and evacuated. Four people, including one firefighter, were transported to a hospital with serious injuries.
More than 100 firefighters descended on the scene as the fire broke windows and trapped some residents in their apartments. Many occupants were told to shelter in place until emergency personnel could escort them down stairwells to safety, Jenkins said.
The 568-unit complex, just outside the beachfront neighborhood of Waikiki on the southern shore of the island of Oahu, was built in 1971. Its condominiums sell from around $339,000 to $650,000.
It is not the first fire to break out in the 46-year-old building. In 2013, a fire started in a microwave oven in an eighth-floor apartment, spreading quickly to the unit above, according to the Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
Residents of both units escaped that fire with no injuries. Seven floors of the building were evacuated, and officials estimated the damage at about $1.1 million.
National building codes have required automatic fire sprinklers in large public and commercial buildings since the early 1980s. Those codes, however, do not apply to older residential high-rises unless a state or local municipality enacts regulations.
Only a handful of states, including Florida and New York, require building owners to retrofit existing high-rise buildings with sprinklers. Multiple cities, including Los Angeles, Denver and Philadelphia, have also introduced requirements, said Brian Jay Meacham, associate professor of fire protection engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.
“The majority of the country is not doing the retrofits,” said Glenn Corbett, associate professor of fire science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. “You see this patchwork of places that have it and others that do not.”
While installing sprinklers in high rises is highly effective — “the chances of dying in a fully sprinkled high rise are just about zero,” Corbett said — the problem is cost.
It typically costs more than $10 per square foot to install sprinkler piping throughout older residential high-rises. Retrofitting sprinklers is more challenging in residential towers than office buildings because they are typically split into multiple compartments.
“Wall after wall, you have to penetrate with piping, and that means moving people around in apartments,” Corbett said. “They can’t live there while workers are drilling holes in their walls.”
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said Friday that his city needs to look at passing a new law requiring sprinklers in older high-rises.
“The biggest argument is the affordability,” Caldwell told the Associated Press. “Residents have to pay. It’s pretty expensive. But if it saves a life and it’s your life, it’s worth the cost.”
Asked if he was concerned enough over the lack of sprinklers to move out of his apartment, Kim wasn’t sure.
“I’m guessing this isn’t likely to happen any time in the next couple of years,” he said. “But it’s definitely a question that’s making me think right now. It does make me consider moving out. This isn’t exactly a cheap place to live.”
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Special correspondent Chang reported from Honolulu, and special correspondent Jarvie reported from Atlanta.
UPDATES:
2:30 p.m.: This article was updated with comments from a tenant, the mayor of Honolulu and fire prevention experts.
This article was originally published at 11 a.m.
