Airway Heights Fire Department proposes sprinkler systems in new homes

Airway Heights would become the first town in Eastern Washington to mandate fire sprinklers in new homes with City Council approval.

In front of a small crowd, the city fire department demonstrated the effectiveness of sprinkler systems Tuesday night by lighting on fire two identically furnished rooms inside a trailer. One of the rooms was equipped with a sprinkler system and the other was not.

Sprinklers extinguished the small flames in the first room in a matter of seconds while the room without sprinklers reached “flashover,” or when all combustibles in a room simultaneously ignite, creating a widespread fire, in about six minutes. That’s when Airway Heights firefighters doused the flames.

“Fire sprinklers buy you time that you need to get out, and time buys life,” Airway Heights Fire Chief Mitch Metzger said.

Metzger used a microphone to talk to the crowd that gathered outside a facility on Garfield Road while the fires were set.

He said Airway Heights firefighters responded to three structure fires this month with an average response time of just under six minutes, meaning Tuesday night’s fire inside the room without sprinklers would have been engulfed in flames by the time firefighters arrived.

Metzger said residents often have three minutes to get out of their home after a fire starts.

The flames and smoke were limited in the fire quickly doused by the sprinkler system in the first room. The smoke alarm activated within 30 seconds of the fire starting and then the sprinklers, which are activated by heat, turned on at 36 seconds.

Metzger said only a sprinkler head closest to a fire will activate first. Other sprinkler heads, which are designed to flow at about 13 gallons per minute, will only turn on if the temperature is hot enough.

“Having a sprinkler system in your home is like having a firefighter in every room of your house,” Metzger said.

Metzger told The Spokesman-Review after the demonstrations that he hopes to bring the proposed ordinance to the City Council in mid-May. It would require new homes have sprinklers in living spaces, which includes kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms and large bathrooms.

He said the additional cost to add sprinklers to a new home would be “really insignificant.”

Airway Heights Fire Marshal Mike Makela told the newspaper it would cost between $2.50 and $3.50 per square foot to install sprinklers in a home.

He said the largest recently built home in Airway Heights was about 3,200 square feet, making it $8,000 to $11,200 to add sprinklers. Installing sprinklers to a new 1,000-square-foot home would cost anywhere from $2,500 to $3,500, according to estimates.

Metzger and Makela said there has never been a fire fatality in a building with sprinklers in Airway Heights.

“That’s the benefit of this,” Makela said. “I get these in homes, we’re not going to have a fire fatality in any new construction that has a sprinkler system in it.”

Smoke alarms, like the ones in the demonstration Tuesday, activate quite early, Makela said, but fires can grow rapidly and sometimes don’t allow residents to get out of the house in time.

“Smoke alarms are great,” he said. “I’ll preach them all day long, but they can’t do what a sprinkler system does.”

Most commercial structures, including apartment buildings, have sprinkler systems in Airway Heights.

Other towns in Washington that have an ordinance similar to what Airway Heights is proposing include Mercer Island, Kirkland, Redmond, Olympia and Camas. Makela said he hopes the council passes the ordinance and sparks support for other fire departments in Eastern Washington to bring similar legislation to their councils.