Most York Region seniors homes have sprinklers

YorkRegion.com
January 27, 2014
By Sean Pearce

Even before last week’s tragic fire at a senior citizens residence in L’Isle-Verte, Que., the province was already moving toward improving safety for Ontario’s care homes.

Since the fire at Residence du Havre, it has emerged the section of the retirement home razed by Thursday morning’s blaze lacked a sprinkler system and wasn’t required to have one under Quebec law. That province’s government has already pledged to review all of its regulations with respect to sprinkler systems in old age homes.

Investigators are now reportedly looking at if smoking may have been the cause, though similar to Ontario, smoking inside the facility would have been illegal in Quebec.

Ontario Fire Marshal Ted Wieclawek declined to compare fire safety policies between the two provinces, but noted amendments to the fire and building codes were introduced here in May.

“I can tell you Ontario is the first jurisdiction in Canada to institute mandatory sprinkler systems for vulnerable residences,” he said, adding the new rules also include self-closing doors, enhanced inspections and staff training and a requirement to have safety plans validated by local fire services.

Under the legislation, which came into effect Jan. 1, all licensed retirement homes and most private care facilities will have five years to install sprinklers, although some care and treatment facilities, including public long-term care homes, will have up to an 11-year phase-in period, Mr. Wieclawek said, explaining the longer timeline for some sites will allow them to incorporate sprinkler installation into redevelopments that may already be planned.

Those deadlines were drawn up through consultation with various stakeholders, including the Association of Municipalities of Ontario and the Ontario Retirement Communities Association, he said.

Even so, Health and Long-Term Care Minister Deb Matthews announced Friday she may fast-track the legislation’s requirement to have sprinklers installed.

Since 1998, most of the retirement homes built in Ontario have been required to have sprinklers and the Retirement Homes Act mandates all information about if a given facility has a sprinkler system be made publicly accessible. Of the 700 retirement homes in Ontario, which altogether house more than 50,000 residents, about 60 per cent already have a sprinkler system installed, Mr. Wieclawek said.

Newmarket and Aurora are pretty well off on this issue, Central York Fire Services chief fire prevention officer Les Chaisson said. For one thing, the service was conducting many of the inspections now required a year before the new legislation passed, he said, adding most of the private care homes in the area either have sprinkler systems and other safety measures in place or are working toward them.

“Fortunately, for us, many of the buildings we need to deal with are newer and are compliant with a newer building code,” he said. “They were required to have sprinklers and other safety features by the code.”

Based on his conversations with counterparts in other York municipalities, Mr. Chaisson suspects the region’s other towns and cities are in similar situations.

York Region operates two long-term care facilities, one in Newmarket and another in Maple, commissioner of community and health services Adelina Urbanski said, explaining both have had sprinkler systems for years as required by the Long-Term Care Act. Being public facilities, they must meet a different set of standards, she said.

Beyond sprinklers, the staff at both facilities perform daily checks, hold frequent drills and have fire safety plans that are reviewed and approved by the local fire departments on an annual basis, Ms Urbanski said.

Sprinklers, training, communications and other measures are each very important, she said.