Fire Safety Statistics and IBC Code Change Proposals

 

By Richard Schulte

Schulte & Associates, Evanston, Ill.

The "Research and Reports" section of the National Fire Protection Association's Web site (www.nfpa.org/) contains a wealth of fire safety statistics that can be used to get a handle on the fire safety problem in the United States. Some of the statistics included in this section of the NFPA Web site are the following:

"U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 3,810 structure fires in office properties in 2000 - 2004. Excluding the events of September 11, 2001, these fires caused annual averages of 1 civilian death, 33 civilian injuries [and] $118 million in direct property damage."

"U. S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 8,520 structure fires in eating and drinking establishments in 2000 - 2004. These fires caused annual averages of 3 civilian deaths, 113 civilian fire injuries [and] $190 million in direct property damage."

"U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 6,560 structure fires in educational properties in 2002 - 2005. These fires caused annual averages of 0 civilian deaths, 95 civilian fire injuries [and] $99 million in direct property damage."

"U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 12,000 structure fires in industrial and manufacturing properties per year in 2000 - 2004. These fires caused annual averages of 17 civilian deaths, 365 civilian fire injuries [and] $747 million in direct property damage."

"U. S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 1,810 structure fires in religious and funeral properties per year during 2000 - 2004. These fires caused annual averages of 2 civilian deaths, 16 civilian fire injuries and $98 million in direct property damage."

Given these statistics, one has to wonder what all the fuss is about when it comes to building fire safety in non-residential buildings. It would seem that, whatever we're doing, we're doing it right. At least that's what most people would probably conclude from the statistics above. But if you look at the building code change proposals submitted to the International Code Council for the upcoming code change cycle for the International Building Code (IBC), particularly proposals by the California Fire Chiefs Association (Cal Chiefs), you just might come to the opposite conclusion.

The following are excerpts from the rationale submitted by the California Fire Chiefs Association in support of code changes addressing reductions in passive fire protection allowed in buildings protected by a sprinkler system:

"... The supporting statement for Code Change E25-07/08, which reinstated the sprinkler tradeoff indicated that sprinklers operate successfully 93% of the time for those fires in sprinklered buildings where the fire was judged large enough to have activated the sprinkler system. However, a more recent analysis of the sprinkler statistics compiled by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), as documented in a report by William E. Koffel, P.E. of Koffel Associates, dated January 2006, and subsequently verified by Dr. John Hall of NFPA, indicates that the overall operational reliability of automatic sprinkler systems based on the most recent data is 89%. This reflects a difference of the sprinkler system failing in 1 fire in every 9 fires based on an 89% reliability factor versus one fire in every fourteen fires based on a 93% reliability factor. This is a significant difference (>50%) and should seriously be considered when determining whether to allow such a sprinkler exception for the protection of occupants with disabilities." Code Change Proposal E30-07/08, Greg Lake, Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, representing the California Fire Chiefs Association

"... We acknowledge that automatic sprinkler systems are an important fire protection tool, but they are not infallible. Like any mechanical system, they are subject to failure. In fact, a recent statistical analysis of automatic sprinkler system performance conducted by the NFPA has concluded that automatic sprinkler systems fail to activate in at least 1 out of every 6 fires that occur in sprinklered buildings. In our opinion, such a level of performance does not justify trading off built-in fire resistant protection for the means of egress in buildings where the occupant's lives are at risk in a fire emergency. A balanced design approach of providing built-in fire resistive protection in conjunction with automatic sprinkler protection, in our opinion, will go a long way toward assuring that the level of fire and life safety intended by the building code will be delivered during a fire emergency."Code Change Proposal E116-07/08, Proponent: Laura Blaul, Orange County Fire Authority, representing California Fire Chiefs Association

"... Although sprinklers are a valuable fire protection tool, they are not infallible, nor can they be assured of providing the necessary degree of protection to allow a 1-hour reduction in fire-resistance for the corridors. A recent analysis of NFPA sprinkler system performance data by William E. Koffel, P.E., of Koffel Associates, has indicated that sprinklers failed to perform satisfactorily in at least 1 out of every 9 fires that occur in sprinklered buildings. We believe that such a performance level does not justify deleting or trading off the 1-hour fire-resistance rating for corridors that provide a protected means of egress for school children in Group E educational occupancies." Code Change Proposal E117-07/08, Proponent: Greg Lake, Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, representing California Fire Chiefs Association (Cal Chiefs); Thomas S. Zaremba, Roetzel & Andress, representing Pilkington Fire Glass North America

"... We acknowledge that automatic sprinkler systems are an important fire protection tool, but they are not infallible. Like any mechanical system, they are subject to failure. In fact, a recent statistical analysis of automatic sprinkler system performance conducted by the NFPA has concluded that automatic sprinkler systems fail to activate in at least 1 out of every 9 fires that occur in sprinklered buildings. In our opinion such a level of performance does not justify trading off built-in fire resistant protection for the means of egress in buildings where the occupant's lives are at risk in a fire emergency. A balanced design approach of providing built-in fire resistive protection in conjunction with automatic sprinkler protection, in our opinion, will go a long way toward assuring that the level of fire and life safety intended by the building code will be delivered during a fire emergency."Code Change E118-07/08, Proponent: Greg Lake, Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, representing California Fire Chiefs Association (Cal Chiefs)

"We do not believe that such tradeoffs are appropriate where life safety is concerned. In such cases, it is advantageous and desirable to maintain the built-in passive fire resistant protection, as well as to provide the active automatic sprinkler system protection, where life safety is involved. In our opinion, tradeoffs are entirely inappropriate where life safety is concerned. We believe that a balanced approach should be used to assure that the appropriate level of life safety will be provided to the occupants of the building who must rely upon the corridors to exit the building."Code Change E119-07/08, Proponent: Greg Lake, Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District, representing California Fire Chief's Association (Cal Chiefs)

Interestingly enough, reductions in passive fire protection features when sprinkler protection is provided have been in place for more than 30 years in the Life Safety Code and in the building code published by the Building Officials and Code Administrators (BOCA) International and, to a lesser extent, in both the Standard Building Code and even the Uniform Building Code. That 30-plus years of experience with sprinkler "tradeoffs" is at least partially responsible for the statistics quoted above. If "tradeoffs" in passive fire protection when sprinkler protection is provided weren't working, and if sprinkler protection is as unreliable as asserted in the rationale for code changes proposed by the Cal Chiefs, then it is highly probable that the fire statistics quoted above would be far worse.

If sprinkler "tradeoffs" endanger the occupants of office buildings and sprinkler protection is so unreliable, how is it that, in a country of 300 million people, the average number of fire fatalities that occur in all of the high-rise and low-rise office buildings in the United States is only one per year? And how is it that, if many of our new schools are constructed with sprinkler protection and are designed taking advantage of the "tradeoffs" in passive fire protection permitted when sprinkler protection is provided, no fire fatalities typically occur in educational occupancies? Certainly, these fire statistics ought to give the Cal Chiefs a reason to question their assertion that sprinkler "tradeoffs" are not appropriate and that sprinkler protection is unreliable.

The fact is that "tradeoffs" in passive fire protection when sprinkler protection is provided do not endanger the occupants of buildings, nor do the "tradeoffs" endanger firefighters. The fire safety record of sprinklered buildings clearly shows that this is the case.

The concept of "balanced" fire protection sounds reasonable, and most, if not all, knowledgeable practitioners in the building fire safety field agree with this concept in the abstract. It's not the concept of "balanced" fire protection that is being debated, however, but the issue of what actually constitutes "balanced" fire protection. In other words, the question that is being debated is, How much fire protection is enough to provide reasonable and adequate protection for building occupants and firefighters?

If the Cal Chief's viewpoint on fire safety were adopted and included in the International Building Code, would the fire fatality statistics for office buildings change significantly? The answer to that question should be quite obvious. Based upon the statistics, most would agree that the goal of the building code has been achieved with respect to office buildings by the present code provisions and the current level of code enforcement. A similar statement can be made with respect to educational occupancies.

In each of the excerpts quoted above, the Cal Chiefs question the reliability of sprinkler systems. Interestingly enough, the fire service in California supports the installation of sprinkler protection in one- and two-family dwellings. If sprinkler protection is as unreliable as indicated in the Cal Chiefs' rationale in support of their code change proposals, it is difficult to understand why they would support the inclusion of mandatory requirements for the installation of sprinklers in dwellings. The reason for their support for mandatory sprinkler protection in dwellings is that the Cal Chiefs are well aware that sprinkler protection is the ultimate life safety feature in a building, and the Scottsdale Report and Prince George's County study clearly demonstrate that sprinkler protection in dwellings is highly reliable.

Since the publication of the Koffel report on sprinkler system reliability in 2005, the validity of the Koffel statistic (and the NFPA statistic) has been questioned. In my travels around the country, I often ask fire prevention personnel about the number of sprinkler system failures that have occurred in their jurisdictions. The response that I have received so far has been the same - none. If there are so many sprinkler system failures, it would be of interest to know the jurisdictions where all the failures are occurring. I have no doubt that the Koffel (and the NFPA) statistic is correct based upon the data on which this statistic is based, however, the validity of the statistic really depends upon the validity of the data on which it is based. Even Koffel acknowledges that the data on which the Koffel statistic is based leaves much to be desired.

In a conversation with Chief Tom Lariviere of the Madison (Mississippi) Fire Department at the Code Technology Committee meeting in Cincinnati in June 2007, Chief Lariviere indicated that many fire service personnel believe that fires in sprinklered buildings should be controlled by the operation of only one sprinkler, and that the operation of more than one sprinkler constitutes a failure of the sprinkler system. Does this definition of sprinkler system failure account, at least in part, for the sprinkler system failure rate being reported? (Incidentally, Chief Lariviere indicated that there have been two sprinkler system operations in Madison. Each fire was controlled by the operation of only one sprinkler.)

Certainly, there are enough practitioners in the field of fire protection who doubt the validity of the Koffel statistic to question its use as a rationale in support of code change proposals. Given that the Cal Chiefs believe that the Koffel statistic is accurate, there apparently must be quite a number of sprinkler system failures in the State of California. It would be interesting if the Cal Chiefs (or the California State Fire Marshal's Office) would begin to document all of the sprinkler system failures that occur in the state so that the fire service in California can state with some assurance that the Koffel statistic is actually accurate. Just my guess, but if you start asking fire prevention personnel in the State of California about the number of sprinkler system failures in their jurisdictions, the number of failures is likely to be few and far between.

The ICC code change hearings that will be held in Palm Springs, California, in late February 2008 should be the perfect place to begin asking California fire officials about the number of failures that have occurred in their jurisdictions. Code Change G71-07/08, which proposes to strike the atrium provisions from the code based upon the lack of sprinkler system reliability, will afford the Cal Chiefs the opportunity to testify on the reliability of sprinkler systems in California. The proponent of this code change is Schulte & Associates.

Richard Schulte is a 1976 graduate of the fire protection engineering program at the Illinois Institute of Technology. After working in various positions within the fire protection field, he formed Schulte & Associates in 1988. His consulting experience includes work on the Sears Tower and numerous other notable structures. He has also acted as an expert witness in the litigation involving the fire at the New Orleans Distribution Center. He can be contacted by sending e-mail to rschulte@plumbingengineer.com.