June 2, 2004—The Schaumburg Village Board passed an ordinance requiring high-rise buildings be retrofit with fire sprinkler systems. According to the ordinance, owners of high-rise buildings built before fire sprinklers were required in 1982 will have until June 2013 to retrofit their buildings. Each owner must complete at least 20% of a building’s retrofit every year. A high-rise in Schaumburg is defined as being above 75 feet.
Schaumburg Fire Chief David Schumann said the work toward passing this ordinance began over a year ago. “When you consider the complicated nature of fires in high-rise buildings, we saw a real threat to occupants and firefighters,” Schumann said. “That threat is greatly reduced by fire sprinklers.”
Schumann said the fire at the Cook County Building where six people died last October brought the issue to the forefront. “There was more focus on the need to make our buildings safer,” he said.
“Fire sprinklers save lives, it’s that simple,” said Tom Lia, Executive Director, Northern Illinois Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board (NIFSAB). “It’s great to see Schaumburg be the first Chicago suburb to pass this ordinance.”
Lia said fire sprinklers would have prevented the six deaths that occurred on October 17th at the Cook County Administration Building. The Chicago Building Committee is currently reviewing two high-rise retrofit ordinances. Mayor Richard Daley’s ordinance would require commercial high-rises built before 1975 to be retrofitted with sprinklers. Ald. Edward Burke’s (14th) ordinance would require sprinklers in commercial and residential buildings.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) found in their 2000 America Burning Recommissioned Report, that the most effective fire loss prevention and reduction measure, with respect to both life and property, is the installation and maintenance of fire sprinklers. Fire sprinkler systems offer the optimum level of fire safety in high-rise buildings because they control the fire immediately in the room of origin, help prevent flashover and often extinguish the fire before the fire department arrives on the scene.
For more information visit the National Fire Sprinkler Association, Northern Illinois Chapter.
