NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 64

SPECIAL ISSUE
HOME FIRE SPRINKLERS

What was the opposition to the
ordinance?

We actually got opposition from both
sides-firefighters and homebuilders.
The fire service didn't like the reduction
in fire flows and the increase in hydrant
spacing, but we tested those things and
they really had little or no impact at all.
The builders didn't want the ordinance
to be mandatory and they still don't
want it mandatory. That's still up in
the air today. When we looked at it, we
realized that if it wasn't mandatory for
everybody then we could not provide
design freedoms. We could not make
our streets narrower, we could not
increase the hydrant space and reduce
the fire flow because some houses might
not be sprinklered while others would
be. We couldn't set the system up for the
best-case scenario, so we had to set it
up for a worst-case scenario. That's why
we made it mandatory-it would level
the playing field for every developer out
there. At the time, the builders actually said that, though they didn't like
the mandatory component, as long as
nobody did more than Scottsdale they
didn't need to oppose the ordinance. Of
course, that's all changed dramatically
with the approach that the National
Association of Home Builders has
taken, but at the time we had the buy-in
from the home building community,
the developers, and the contractors.

But now some state legislatures,
including Arizona's, are siding with
the homebuilders' argument that the
decision to sprinkler should be an individual choice and that the homeowner's wishes carry more weight than
a community's ability to set public
safety protection laws. We had our
ordinance in place already, so that shift
didn't affect us. It also didn't affect any
community that had a similar ordinance in place before the state legislature got involved. It was validation
that NFPA and the International Code
Council followed Scottsdale's lead and
put sprinkler requirements for oneand two-family homes in their codes.
Is there still opposition to the
Scottsdale ordinance?

The only opposition I get is from the
homebuilders' association. They say,
"We don't think this should be mandatory but we know you're not going
to change." In Scottsdale, there's very
little opposition to our ordinance now
because it has worked so well.

50,000 homes sprinklered because
we've been working on this so long.
We don't tie up a lot of fire department equipment and personnel,
either. The impact is much less.
Can you quantify that lower
fire loss?

The real key is when you look at fire
loss per capita, which is the dollar
impact of those incidents. A recent
independent evaluation identified our
fire loss at $7.31 per capita. Compare
that to the Western region's $36 per
capita, and the national average of $27
per capita-we're a fraction of those
levels. We have slightly more incidents
than comparably sized communities, but we have a much better record
of reducing the impact. That's what
sprinklers can do, and that's what we
focus on. We know we can't stop all the
incidents, but we've greatly reduced the
impact of the ones that occur.
Have there been other benefits?

There was an initial study done on
fire hydrants and water flow requireWhat are some of the ways the
ments, and our water department
ordinance has worked?
found that with hydrant spacing and
We have more calls for service
our infrastructure, it would save in
compared to other cities our size, but the neighborhood of $7 million to $8
our overall fire loss is lower. We still
million if we required all buildings to
have fires, but we don't have nearly
be sprinklered. That's a huge savings for
the size or number of what other
the community. Also, because of the
communities do, because about 95
reduced fire problem, the fire departHow has the homebuilders'
percent of our fires in properties
ment can do a lot more for the commuapproach changed?
protected by automatic sprinklers are nity. We fully embrace the all-hazards
Our city council decided that public
controlled by one or two sprinklers.
approach to response and community
safety is the council's responsibility.
Right now, we're just shy of having
risk reduction. We do hazmat. We do
community outreach. We do
emergency medical services,
which is anywhere from 60-80
%
percent of our calls now. We're
providing a much better level of
Percentage of fires
gallons
service on the type of calls that
gallons
in sprinklered propregularly impact our commuAverage amount
Average amount of water
erties contained by
nity. All of our firefighters are
of water
discharged by firefighter
the operation of just
discharged by
medically trained. Our trucks are
hoses per fire
one sprinkler
sprinklers per fire
staffed with four people-
an engineer, a captain, and two

NFPA JOURNAL OCTOBER 2016

341

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue