Vancouver highrise fire draws attention to lack of sprinklers | Vancouver Sun

Across Vancouver, there are 388 buildings that are only partially installed with sprinklers. Another 83 have no sprinklers at all.

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While it would be great if all highrises in the city were equipped with sprinklers, there are legitimate reasons why they are not always feasible in older buildings, Vancouver fire officials acknowledged this week.

“If we could snap our fingers and have every building sprinklered to lower risk, we would prefer that, for sure. It’s just the feasibility has got to make sense,” said Matthew Trudeau, information officer for Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services.

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“It’s not a one-sided story here.”

Earlier this week, a fire broke out on the 20th floor of a 26-storey West End condo building at 1500 Alberni St., causing damage to several units.

In the aftermath, it was revealed that while the building was equipped with sprinklers in the lobby and underground levels, none of the floors above the first storey had them, “which contributed to the heavy and rapid fire spread to upper levels,” the city said in a statement at the time.

The building was constructed in 1991, one year before the city adopted rules requiring sprinklers in new buildings of that type. Across the city, there are 388 pre-1992 buildings that are six storeys and taller that are only partially equipped with sprinklers, according to Trudeau.

There are 83 additional buildings six-storeys and taller that have no sprinklers at all, he said.

But fire officials caution against making assumptions about why building or strata owners have opted not to install sprinklers.

“It’s not cut and dried. You can’t just say, ‘Put sprinklers in a building,'” Trudeau said.

He used the example of a 1950s-era highrise. In some cases, it might not be physically possible to install a sprinkler system because the building just wasn’t designed to the handle the load associated with drilling and installing the network of pipes, Trudeau said.

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“That’s a significant engineering problem,” he said.

Additionally, you have to consider the lifespan of the building. If the building’s only going to be around for another 10 years, is it reasonable to expect the owner to spend all that extra money?

“Dollars need to make sense for someone who’s paying for this,” he said. “It’s expensive to retrofit a building.”

Tony Gioventu, executive-director of the Condominium Home Owners Association of B.C., said in an email that strata corporations are faced with significant costs already in older buildings.

“The cost is very high. In aging buildings, strata corporations are faced with significant costs in elevator upgrades, hot and cold domestic water, roofing and mechanical services,” he wrote.

That said, there are other emergency and life-saving measures that buildings should — or must — have in place, including smoke detectors, fire safety plans, dedicated plumbing for fighting fires, self-closing doors, emergency lighting, and escape routes, Trudeau said.

“All those systems were in place and they worked” at the Alberni Street fire this week, Trudeau said, noting that there were no injuries.

Older buildings that are deemed higher-risk are regularly visited by inspectors to ensure systems are in place and they comply with safety codes, Trudeau said.

He added that when older buildings request permits for major renovations, that can trigger requirements that those upgrades include installation of sprinklers.

At the provincial level, the B.C. Building Code was updated in 1998 requiring sprinklers in all new residential buildings over three storeys, all highrise buildings over six storeys, and all care facilities.

The cause of this week’s West End fire remains under investigation.

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