Vaughan fire chief calls on Queen's Park to enact sprinkler system legislation after spate of fires

Vaughan Citizen
February 6, 2014
By Adam Martin-Robbins

Vaughan’s fire chief is calling for sprinkler systems to be installed in all new homes after a spate of devastating blazes in the city.

“I think the province should move forward and enact legislation to make them mandatory in all new construction of residential homes,” Vaughan fire chief Larry Bentley said Thursday morning, following a fire on Rainbow Drive in Woodbridge. “They are designed to control a fire until we arrive and it can help stop a lot of property damage and save lives.”

Mr. Bentley said local firefighters have been called to seven house fires in the past 10 days, including at least one “total loss", the damages of which are estimated to be about $700,000.

He said if that home had been equipped with a fire-suppressant sprinkler system the damage would have been minimal.

Requiring existing homes to be equipped with sprinkler systems would be costly for homeowners, the fire chief said, but making it mandatory for builders to install them when constructing new homes would be a good first step.

At least one local home builder, Townwood Homes, has stepped up and agreed to outfit 136 townhomes and six semi-detached homes with sprinkler systems in its Mackenzie Ridge Terraces development on Major Mackenzie Drive, near Dufferin Street.

Asked if the province is considering enacting such legislation, a spokesperson for the Municipal Affairs and Housing Ministry responded in an email that the "government takes the safety of Ontarians seriously".

“The building code addresses fire safety in a number of ways and its requirements are the strongest in Canada," wrote May Nazar, senior media relations coordinator. "The Building code makes use of a combination of the following fire safety principles: detection, warning, containment, suppression (e.g., sprinklers) and exiting.”

Ms Nazar also noted that since 2010, the building code has required that large residential buildings, greater than three storeys, be constructed with sprinklers.

She also added that residential fire deaths in Ontario have steadily declined since the building code was introduced in 1975 and that the province has one of the lowest rates of residential fire deaths in Canada.