How local fire departments are enforcing fire safety

Fire inspections are a key part of preventing fires and saving lives, officials say

Thestar.com
June 15, 2023
Cheyenne Bholla

After a fatal fire in Waterloo last week, fire officials suggested stricter enforcement of fire safety would make people take a bigger role in ensuring they’re safe from fire.

After a house fire on Graham Street in Waterloo killed a 54-year-old woman last Monday, fire officials have been emphasizing the importance of having working smoke and fire alarms in the home. Fatal fires often happen in properties that don’t have working smoke alarms.

Fire inspections are a key part of fire prevention and each municipality in the region takes a different approach.

Legally, homeowners and landlords are required to have smoke alarms on every floor and outside every sleeping area.

Batteries should be changed yearly, with monthly checks to make sure the device is working.

Individual property owners who don’t comply face fines of up to $5,000 for a first offence and up to $10,000 for the second.

Corporations can face fines of up to $500,000 on first offence, and up to $1.5 million on the next.

In Waterloo, seven fire inspectors do a total of about 500 inspections each year and 350 re-inspections.

They usually find about 800 violations yearly, sometimes with multiple violations for a single property.

The fire department aims to educate, so does not lay charges if a property owner complies with fire safety rules after they’ve been notified of any violations.

“We are very successful in getting compliance, which is why we don’t have a lot of fines,” said Waterloo Chief Richard Hepditch.

“If you’re not motivated to protect yourself, protect others,” he urged.

Kitchener has four fire prevention officers. With a small team, the department often does not allocate resources to doing inspections, said Kitchener’s chief fire prevention officer, Tom Ruggle.

Kitchener and Waterloo fire inspectors focus on more serious cases, inspecting properties after a fire.

About six charges are laid a year in Kitchener, typically ranging from $2,000 to $5,000, said Ruggle. .

“We are relying on property owners to have an interest in their own well-being,” said Ruggle.

“It’s disturbing how many properties we see -- and these are commercial rental businesses -- that have failed to live up to their obligations under the fire code.”

Kitchener is also the only municipality in the region using the Direct Detect technology.

After a house fire took the lives of four children in 1996, the city’s fire department began looking at what more could be done around fire safety beyond the traditional fire department response.

On the morning of June 11, a semi-detached home at 258 The Country Way went up in flames, claiming the lives of Angela Dombroskie, 9, David Dombroskie, 4, Jamie Burns, 3, and Devon Burns, 2.

Their mother, Leanne Dombroskie, was able to escape the fire in time with second-degree burns.

Today, the city uses the “Direct Detect” program, where emergency services will automatically be dispatched if a property’s fire alarms go off.

The service actively monitors 4,000 properties whose owners have signed up for the program. Renters can get the program for $16 a month, while owners pay $7. There are more than 50,000 residential properties in Kitchener.

Most Direct Detect customers are on the edges of the city, where it would take firefighters longer to get to.

“Sometimes it takes an awful long time for folks to pick up the phone and call 911, so (we) tried to take that out of the way,” Ruggle said.

Fire inspectors in Cambridge issue fines of $295 per infraction, for things such as for failing to install or maintain a smoke or carbon monoxide alarm.

Inspectors can do follow-up visits, and lay additional charges.

”Fires burn hotter and faster than they ever have and every second counts,” said Eric Yates, chief fire prevention officer of Cambridge Fire.

All the fire inspectors stressed that fire enforcement is only part of fire safety.

The most important next step is to educate younger people so that they make fire safety a regular part of their lives, said Ruggle.

That includes being aware of when smoke and fire alarms should be checked, knowing two escape route in their home and watching food as it cooks.