NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 65
FEATURE
THE SCOTTSDALE ORDINANCE AT 30
firefighters-and two of those four are
advanced life care paramedics. Every
unit is connected directly to the emergency room. Those units can provide a
higher level of service to our residents
and our visitors.
Has there been a reduction in fire
services as a result of building a
fire-protected community?
This is something that comes up all the
time. One of the arguments against a
sprinkler ordinance is that sprinklers
mean you'll lose fire services. But we
are an all-hazards emergency service,
not sprinklered will require a full
response. Our guys will be there a long
time, and when they walk in the front
door they'll be flowing 150 to 200
gallons per minute per hose line. If it
turns into an extended event, it will be
1,000 gallons per minute minimum.
So we will flow 10, 20, 50 times more
water on the non-sprinklered house
than on the sprinklered house.
Has the ordinance help cut
fire deaths in Scottsdale?
Yes-we didn't have a single death in
a sprinklered home in the 15 years
ordinance, we've never lost a firefighter
in Scottsdale.
What challenges does Scottsdale's fire department face now?
Homebuilders are now putting up
homes that are 18,000 or 20,000
square feet. How do you design a home
sprinkler system that can contain a
fire in a mini-mansion? The answer is
you can't. For firefighter safety, what
we've done in Scottsdale is adjust our
ordinance so that now if you build
any residential property over 12,000
square feet-which happens to be
the definition of a
big-box commercial
building-we make
you sprinkler it to a
multi-family limit of
protection. I'd much
rather my firefighters go into a Home
Depot or a Lowe's
or a Walmart than a
15,000-square-foot
house where everything is custom and
there's a lot of open
space. It's much
more dangerous for our guys to go
into those kinds of structures. So we
required homebuilders to increase the
fire protection in those buildings. We
also put an electric flow switch and bell
on every house, so if nobody is home
and we have a fire inside, we have at
least a local alarm that will activate.
"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.'"
and you don't change the infrastructure that was there before you adopted
an ordinance. You still have your existing hydrants, you still have the existing
streets, and you still have your existing
structures. That all stays. Our downtown is all older infrastructure that
doesn't fall under the 1986 ordinance.
You still need fire and emergency
services to cover all of that.
What is it like to fight a fire in
a home with sprinklers versus a
home without?
If you have two houses side-by-side,
one sprinklered and one not, the
one with sprinklers is going to be
controlled with one or two sprinkler
heads flowing 10 or 15 gallons of water
per minute until we can get there. It
keeps the fire small. The home that's
Photograph: NFPA
between
p Jim Ford, deputy chief and
1986 and
fire marshal of the Scottsdale
2000.
Fire Department
During
that
period, we had 13 fire fatalities in homes
without sprinklers and at least 13 saves
in sprinklered properties including
homes. If we weren't protected the
way we are, I honestly believe those 13
saves would have been fatalities. That
means we would have been right at the
national average for cities our size. We
essentially cut our fatality rate in half
during those first 15 years. In the next
15 years, between 2001 and this year,
we've had one death in a sprinklered
home, and that one involved a man with
severe physical limitations who started
a fire by smoking while using a home
oxygen system. And since we passed the
What would you have done
differently with Scottsdale's
ordinance?
I wouldn't have gone to 1,200 feet
between hydrants-I would have gone
to 1,000 feet. I think that would have
made it easier for the civil engineers
to design the infrastructure. Operationally, it doesn't make a difference,
but it would have made a difference
in design. Other than that, I'm pretty
satisfied with what we've done.
OCTOBER 2016 NFPA JOURNAL
65
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue
Contents
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - Cover1
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - Cover2
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 1
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - Contents
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 3
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 4
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 5
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 6
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 7
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 8
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 9
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 10
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 11
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 12
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 13
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 14
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 15
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 16
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 17
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 18
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 19
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 20
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 21
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 22
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 23
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 24
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 25
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 26
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 27
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 28
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 29
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 30
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 31
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 32
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 33
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 34
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 35
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 36
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 37
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 38
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 39
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 40
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 41
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 42
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 43
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 44
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 45
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 46
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 47
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 48
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 49
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 50
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NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 53
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NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 60
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 61
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 62
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 63
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 64
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 65
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 66
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 67
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 68
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 69
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 70
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 71
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 72
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 73
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 74
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 75
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 76
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 77
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 78
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 79
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - 80
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - Cover3
NFPA Journal - October 2016 Home Fire Sprinkler Special Issue - Cover4
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