FIRE PREVENTION

Hearts & Minds
Our argument for residential fire sprinklers must effectively influence decision-makers
By Jim Crawford

You may have thought the effort to include fire sprinklers in all new construction of one- and two-family dwellings ended with the passage of the requirements in the International Residential Code (IRC), published by the International Code Council (ICC); residential sprinklers have been required for some years now in National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) codes.

But after the passage in the ICC, the homebuilding industry rallied its forces and began a concerted effort to defeat the new requirements by removing them as the relevant codes were to be adopted in each state. In short, it’s become a legislative battle to preempt the normal code adoption process. My last count showed there were 14 states actively engaged in this controversial fight over residential fire sprinklers.

In my opinion, a fight in the legislature is about influence. That influence is often significantly enhanced by political contributions. It takes heavy dollars to get elected in our nation these days. I’m hardly an expert, but in my younger days I actually ran for the state legislature in Oregon, and learned firsthand the “game” of political contributions. No one EVER asked me for a quid pro quo, but I was well aware that lobbyists were providing funding based on how receptive they thought I’d be to their points of view. Not winning the election was probably a good thing for me personally, but the lessons I learned stuck with me and, as such, I’ve learned some basic lessons about the political process that I feel compelled to share in the battle for residential sprinklers.

Not the Enemy
First, homebuilders are not an “enemy,” as some would describe. We certainly have different interests, but I don’t believe that they’re deliberately producing a product that kills people and misleading the public about it. That would better describe the tobacco industry for many years—telling legislators that their products weren’t causing cancer, heart or lung disease.

I can’t claim to understand homebuilders’ resistance to fire sprinklers; I don’t travel in their circles. But I don’t believe that demonizing them will serve any useful purpose. In fact, as we attempt to influence legislators ourselves, overstating our case about the homebuilding industry’s “evil” ways will only serve to undermine our credibility.

If you accept that logic (and I realize that many people won’t), then strategies to win these legislative battles—and others that no doubt will arise—will become simpler, because we maximize our influence. And because we don’t have dollars to influence election campaigns, we’re going to have to make sense.

Combating the Arguments
The major talking points the homebuilding industry has been using center on the costs of fire sprinklers. Some of their points cannot be ignored. For example, water purveyors who charge substantial sums of money for larger water meters (required for many residential fire sprinkler systems) add significantly to the cost of the system. Many local jurisdictions have managed this problem by working with their water purveyors to eliminate increased costs, thereby removing not only a barrier to installation, but a political argument as well.

Still other points made by the industry are disingenuous. They point out that the fire sprinkler industry provided significant financial support for the participation of “fire-sprinkler-friendly” members to influence the vote at the IRC hearings this year. They usually fail to mention that the housing industry has done the same in years past. This time they were out-financed and outmaneuvered politically by a collaborative effort, including the organization formed specifically for this fight, the International Residential Code Fire Sprinkler Coalition (www.ircfsprinkler.org).

Another point homebuilders make: Sprinklers are too expensive and will drive up the cost of housing. That resonates with many legislative types because of the overall housing slump, truly a national economic disaster. But the numbers don’t seem to add up. In an online discussion for the NFPA, Maria Figueroa, a leader of the NFPA’s fire sprinkler initiative, provided the following example:

“Consider a hypothetical $3,000 sprinkler system in a $300,000 home with a 6.5 percent mortgage, a 5 percent credit on a $2,000/year insurance bill and a combined federal/state income tax rate of 33 percent. The net cost of fire sprinklers, after mortgage-related tax deductions, would be $4.37 per month. This represents a 0.23 percent increase in the monthly payment and roughly equates to the cost of a premium beverage at your local coffee shop.
“So, I pose the question to everyone listening to this program today: Just how cheap do sprinklers have to become before they’re considered cost-effective?”

The Information Control Battle
While we strive to prove that fire sprinklers can be installed for a fraction of the cost the homebuilding industry claims, we must also strive to get the right information in the hands of decision-makers, many of whom are tempted to conclude that there isn’t a strong enough cost/benefit rationale for residential fire sprinklers.

Example: Recently a friend sent me some correspondence he’d had with a legislator in his state regarding the new regulations for residential fire sprinklers. The legislator estimated (wrongly) that the added expense of residential fire sprinklers in his state ($1.5 billion) would only save 49 lives a year. My friend checked the math. Sprinklering 30,000 homes in that state would actually cost about $150 million. That’s still a significant dollar amount to save 49 people, but consider that it amounts to just $1.11 per house per month.

In my experience, the process of influencing decision-makers—and especially lawmakers—often comes down to providing them with sufficient arguments that are plausible enough to provide political cover when elections come around. It is not necessarily about logic. It is about influence—and to maximize our influence, the groups that are coming together in each state around this issue are going to have to stay focused and keep pushing.

There are several organizations ready to help, so we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. But we do need to create the relationships that will maximize our own influence—as we fight the dollars of the political process with sense.

Jim Crawford is a district chief and fire marshal with the Vancouver (Wash.) Fire Department and is chair of the NFPA technical committee on professional qualifications for fire marshals. He has written “Fire Prevention: A Comprehensive Approach,” published by Brady, and has also written a chapter on fire prevention in “Managing Fire and Rescue Services,” published by the International City/County Managers Association. Crawford is a past president of the International Fire Marshals Association and has served on the NFPA’s Standards Council. He is a member of the IAFC.


For More Information

www.homefiresprinkler.org: The coalition for educating people about the values of residential fire sprinklers

www.nfsa.org: The National Fire Sprinkler Association

www.firesprinkler.org: The American Fire Sprinkler Association

www.firesprinklerinitiative.org: The National Fire Protection Association effort to support state-by-state legislative efforts for residential fire sprinklers, similar to those for “fire safe” cigarettes.