Fire suppression systems save lives

To die in a house fire, generally, is an uncommon occurrence. At least in the Valley, firefighters have to battle a blaze with someone inside a building usually once, maybe twice a year.

But this year has been wildly different.

Since August, firefighters have fought five of these fires and were given the wrenching task of finding the remains of eight of their neighbors.

Talking to firefighters, the best a person can do when faced with that grim statistic is thank the responders who go back out, sometimes within hours, to put out the next fire and hope the next fatality won’t come too soon.

But there are a number of things we can do to minimize fire fatalities. There is, of course, the oft-repeated advice about making sure furnaces are in good working order and chimneys are clean. Cigarette butts and cigars must be disposed of properly and fully extinguished.

But politics can also play a role.

Dennis Brodigan, the borough’s director of emergency services, has for some time now been advocating for laws mandating the installation of in-home fire sprinkler systems in new homes.

It’s not hard to see how the idea might meet some resistance. Alaskans as a whole are generally wary of new government regulations. Homebuilders in particular tend to resist mandated sprinkler systems. In-home sprinklers are costly to install and drive potential customers away.

The Valley’s own state Sen. Linda Menard sponsored a bill to “avoid broad mandates for home sprinkler systems that will drive up costs for consumers in areas where sprinklers may not necessarily be needed.” The bill, the senator and her staff repeated, would not stop municipalities from adopting these kinds of codes, but simply expand the public process and add more scrutiny to the measures if they were proposed.

In her sponsor’s statement, she argues that modern construction techniques have already greatly reduced fire fatalities and that the average sprinkler system will add $3,000 to the cost of a new home, pricing untold numbers of buyers out of the market. The measure did not make it to a vote before the legislative session ended and, as of now, it’s essentially dead.

On the other side, Brodigan comes to the table armed with a sheaf of statistics showing that communities who have instituted these kinds of rules have seen fire deaths and even property damage drop dramatically. There is a reason, after all, that buildings like Wal-Mart and Carrs don’t burn, despite carrying a fire load — burnable materials and combustible chemicals — that would terrify any firefighter tasked with battling the blaze. Those commercial buildings have sprinkler systems.

In the longest view, as older buildings make way for newer ones, fire departments like those under Brodigan’s supervision could conceivably morph into organizations tasked with battling car and forest fires rather than house fires.

Homebuilders could, at least in theory, turn such amenities to their advantage. Fire sprinklers could be a feature they market, like fancy countertops, energy efficiency and expensive flooring.

What seems clear is that while residential fire suppression systems do add cost to new homes — like seat belts, air bags and other safety features in vehicles — they also save lives.

And we doubt that the families who have lost loved ones to these tragic house fires would consider $3,000 too high a price to pay for the lives of their loved ones. Especially in the Mat-Su Borough, where many homes are far from fire stations and where we also face the risk of forest fires, residential sprinkler systems seem like a smart investment.

Perhaps the best thing we can take away from this rash of tragic fire deaths is a healthy discussion.