Pleasant View, TN (December 30, 2014) – Castle Hills, Texas just experienced something that no town or community wants to experience, a high-rise, senior living apartment building on fire. This fire leaves 5 citizens dead, many injured, and many with emotional scars that won’t heal anytime soon. This fire, like many before it, shows the need for current building and fire codes, especially automatic fire sprinklers.
常见的声音,一个主张“联合决定to create a Fire Safe America and support people impacted by the ravages of fire, believes this tragedy is an important reminder of the dangers of fire and how fast it can and does strike.
常见的声音扩展它s support to the families of those lost in the tragic Wedgwood Fire in Castle Hills, Texas, and to those who survived.
“These events are preventable, says Common Voices advocate Justina Page, from Houston, Texas. “Technology exists and current codes should be in place to make sure people don’t die and that they aren’t scared for life physically and emotionally.”
Page understands, she lost her 22-month-old son in a fire in 1999.
“Why do we have to have tragedy after tragedy when we know what can solve our fire problem? Fire sprinklers are needed today. Too many people are dying in Texas because of fire. Let’s work to protect our most vulnerable citizens.”
This is the Lone Star State’s second deadly fire in December involving senior living apartments — with a total of seven senior citizens killed — two in Dallas on December 10 and five in San Antonio/Castle Hills on December 28.
According to the Wedgwood Apartments website, major renovations had occurred during 2014, with the statement made that “2014 was a year of great improvements.” If only one of those improvements had been fire sprinklers, the outcome would have been much different in the early morning hours of December 28.
Descriptions of the fire made by residents who did escape underscore how scary and chaotic a fire scene is for those living through it. Descriptions of melting blinds and smoke too thick to see through, along with jammed exits all make real an event that everyone hopes they never experience. Flashover occurs in three minutes or less. Fire sprinklers are the answer to preventing flashover. Each sprinkler is individually activated by heat, only the sprinkler closest to the fire goes off. So occupants have time to escape. This is especially important in senior housing.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration and the NFPA, older adults and people with disabilities are at higher risk of dying in a fire. Fire sprinklers are on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year…ready and waiting for a fire that they will control.
Common Voices is concerned with some news reports that erroneously indicated fire sprinklers were present in the Wedgwood building. It’s important to note that the Wedgwood building had no fire sprinklers. To date, the U.S. has never seen a multiple loss of life due to fire in a structure that has a properly installed and properly maintained fire sprinkler system.
“Our hope is that this event will help Texas policymakers understand the important role that codes play in keeping citizens safe,” says Vickie Pritchett, facilitator of the Common Voices coalition. “It’s time that local communities be able to adopt code requirements that include fire sprinklers — the lives of Texans are depending on it.”
Common Voices supports the educational resources available at the Home Fire Sprinkler Coalitio www.homefiresprinkler.org and also National Fire Protection
Association’s Residential Sprinkler Initiative at www.nfpa.org – partnering together we can make a difference–fire prevention works and fire sprinklers save lives.
Additional resources are available atwww.fireadvocates.org,www.nfsa.org,www.usfa.fema.gov, andwww.strategicfire.org
