A one-year-old boy died in an apartment fire in Crest Hill on April 16, 2016.
Less than four months into 2016, Illinois has already experienced five youth fire deaths in residential buildings, only one less than the total for all of 2015. Three of the most recent youth fire deaths occurred in the last week. A one-year-old Crest Hill boy died in an apartment fire on April 16 and two- and four-year-old Kankakee boys died together in an apartment fire on April 13. The fire deaths in Kankakee also account for one of four multiple-fatality residential fires in 2016, which equals the total of such fires from 2015. The total number of residential fire deaths in Illinois has now reached 33 for the year.
In addition, Lia notes that fire and elected officials need to consider updating their communities’ building and fire codes and ordinances to reflect measures present in the national model codes. Current model codes from the International Code Council and National Fire Protection Association require fire sprinklers in all new construction residential buildings due to their ability to control or extinguish fires when they are still small and prevent the spread of deadly smoke.
The case for fire sprinklers in the codes is evident in studies from the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) that prove the enhanced risk of fire in today’s newer homes. According to the studies, when exposed to fire, lightweight materials in newer homes, such as engineered floor systems, along with open construction designs can create more dangerous conditions faster and fail sooner compared to older dimensional lumber systems. Airtight construction and energy-conserving building materials such as double-glazed (vinyl) windows, synthetic insulation materials and foam sheathing help fires spread faster. Also, contents of homes — polyurethane foam-filled furniture and other synthetic objects such as carpet and electronics — can cause flashover and emit toxic smoke.
“Fire is everyone’s fight — from firefighters who respond to fires and educate the public about fire safety to elected officials who adopt progressive codes to homeowners who can practice better fire prevention,” says Lia.
This entry was posted on April 20, 2016 at 8:36 pm and is filed under 2016 - Issue 1 - Spring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.