FRFD & NFSA Partnership press conference 5 20 26

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the Gabriel House fire, um we've been looking for meaningful ways to honor the victims and um and ensure that this tragedy doesn't repeat itself again. Um so um one of the things that that that we look into is when we look at tragic fires in the past and the one that you will all be most aware of is the station nightclub fire and the changes that came

to code and to uh to fire safety after that. Um and and we want to make sure that this fire also has the same um the same uh legacy. So, um, I'm going to ask in a minute Josh Hetsler. He's the captain of, uh, fire prevention and the assistant city fire marshal for the city of Fall River to come up. Josh and uh Sean Fler, who at the time was the

deputy chief and the city fire marshal, uh approached me with an idea to try to change codes both locally and nationally um to ensure that recalled sprinklers are not installed and and and present in in occupancies not only in our area but across the country. Um, so Josh can tell you a little more about that and his um his relationship that he then built with the National Fire Sprinkler Association

uh from the NSFA. We have uh Michael Joannis who's going to speak in a little bit about what they plan to do here at the beginning of July. He's the chief operating officer of the NFSA. And we have Jeffrey Hugo and Molly Hugo who are also from the NFSA. And I think the uh the meaningful relationships that we built through the pursuit of these code changes are really going to bring a a

positive um a positive feeling to to uh to what we've been trying to accomplish in the last year. So without further ado, Josh Hler.

Thank you. So as the chief said, uh we're looking to change codes uh on a national and even here on the state level um in regarding recalled sprinklers. So, we want to ensure that recalled sprinklers are no longer in any of the buildings uh that people occupy.

Currently, there is no requirement in the code for anyone to look for recalled sprinklers. So, you know, you're in a building that has sprinklers, you think, hey, I should be safe that none of these sprinkler heads are recalled. But that's not the case. um the standard that inspectors use to inspect the NFPA25 the standard uh inspection I'm sorry NFPA25 it's the uh inspection testing

maintenance uh of water-based fire protection systems standard does not require um that the inspector looks for recall sprinklers.

So there's an annual checklist that they go through and and you know normally they look for XYZ. Currently they just have to go in and look at the sprinklers from the ground level. they don't have to do an uplose uh inspection of the sprinkler and that's what's required to determine if it's a recalled sprinkler.

So, we're going to try to change NFPA25.

We're going to try to get this fixed.

Simultaneously, we're going to try to change 527 CMR, which is the Massachusetts uh fire code. So, it's a simple change. We're going to leverage existing code language that's in there.

Currently, you're supposed to have a list of the installed sprinklers in your spare sprinkler cabinet, but like other things in the code, no one's required to actually look for it. So, it says you're supposed to have the list, but no one's required to look for the list. But, so what I want to do is I want to make sure you look for that list every year and ensure that it's there. And I want you

to cross reference the list of installed sprinklers with known recalls through the CPSC and and other agencies.

When we submit this change, it's going to be a TIA. So, the code change process can be very slow. The traditional process is normally a three-year cycle, which is a PI uh public input through the NFPA, but we're going to go with the TIA, which is a tentative and term amendment. Uh this is for an emergency nature, something that we feel is very important. So, obviously, um we know

this is important based on the Gabriel House fire and we don't want to see it happen anywhere else. when we submit this TIA, there's going to be a chance for the public to share um their opinion on it, some public input, and that'll help us further uh our goals getting this passed because it's not as simple as just putting in for the code change.

As you can imagine, there's a technical committee that we have to convince that this need that code needs to change. So, uh we could use uh help when that time comes for uh you know, other AHJs uh anyone who anyone can could ask for this to be something that should be changed, right? So when we get there, we'll let everyone know. We plan on submitting that language at the beginning of June.

So, uh, that's coming up rather quickly.

In the process, when you submit a TIA, you do need to get two sponsors on the technical committee to support you. And, uh, we were lucky enough to meet the NFSA and we partner with them and they have a member on the technical committee and that member is going to be one of the two sponsors that we need to get the TIA even looked at so we can get this code change to happen. And, uh, with

that, I'll let Michael Jonah speak to it. Thank you.

So, good afternoon. I'm Mike Jonas. I'm the chief operating officer of the National Fire Sprinkler Association, but uh more importantly than that, I've been a licensed fire protection engineer and done fire protection here in Massachusetts for the last 30 years. Um I want to first thank the Fall River Fire Department and the fire chief. Um this is an actually very exciting opportunity to take something from this

tragedy from last July and make a change on a national level. It it does not it's not something you go at lightigh-heartedly, okay? It is a it's a it's a monumental task to move these codes and standards. The process takes a long time and we're happy to help them with that process and navigate through making changes to the standards that are used to inspect these systems. I want to

make sure everybody understands that what happened here last July is not in line with our mission. The National Fire Sprinkler Association's mission is to protect lives and property through the widespread from fire through the widespread acceptance of the fire sprinkler concept. It's not accept acceptable to us to have fire fatalities in a sprinkler building. So, we know we need to have sprinkler systems. We know

we need to have them properly working and to have them properly and working, they need to be inspected, tested and maintained in accordance with the national standards. So, we're happy to support this change to uh we are also going to submit a few changes that will parallel and go along with the changes that they're submitting.

In addition to that, the week of July 6th, right here at Fall River Fire Department headquarters in their training facility out back, we're going to build one of the dwelling units to mock and mimic what was there at the Gabriel House. We'll also build a 25- foot hallway to simulate the hallway outside the room of origin. And we plan to conduct two demonstrations. One demonstration with a properly

functioning fire sprinkler system and one demonstration with the sprinkler system impaired or not properly functioning as if there were recalled sprinklers that did not activate. We expect that this will show the drastic difference between the fire conditions, the heat, the smoke conditions both in the room of origin and in the hallway and how that would lead to better life safety for the occupants in that

building. So again, that process will happen the week of July 6th. There will be a media portion associated with that as well as our partners at ULFSRI, Massachusetts State's Fire Chiefs, Common Voices, National Association of State Fire Marshals, and uh we will bring all those folks in to participate in that event. And hopefully this will also go to support the changes that are being proposed by Fall River. So thank

you.

We can take a few questions if you guys uh have any.

I think you kind of touched on this, but I wondered if you could explain what is this. So the status right now someone has sprinklers that have been uh is there does a responsibility of anyone to replace them or Right. So currently uh the way NFPA25 reads so no one has to look to see if there's a recall pole. It is the property owner's responsibility though to maintain that water system, right?

That fire protection system. So, the only place in NFPA25 where it says the word recall, um there's two places.

That's it. And basically, if recalled sprinklers are known to be in that building and then noted by anyone, they're supposed to notify the owner.

So, then the owner would be notified. Um once the owner's notified, the other piece of language says if you're notified that they're recalled, then you must then take action and replace that.

So, that's whose responsibility it is ultimately to know that. But in many cases, the building owner doesn't know.

And because the inspection companies aren't actually required to look for a recalled sprinkler head, nobody knows, right? And and that's the gap here in the code that we're trying to close.

We're trying to make it so that people are now looking at them on an annual basis, determining, you know, if there are recall sprinklers here. And if they are found, that system is then considered impaired and needs to be replaced or fixed immediately and have those recall sprinkler heads replaced.

So this is a status across Massachusetts, the country.

Yep. across the country. This is a standard that they use for uh testing sprinkler systems, NFPA25.

And again, it may seem really obvious to you, but how dangerous is it to system?

Uh extremely dangerous. Uh there's been studies done by Dine Labs that say they have a failure rate of 54%. So, more than likely, they're not going to operate. And the other thing to take in consideration is that when you have a sprinkler system installed, there are a lot of other building concessions provided. So now you can have longer corridors to an exit and and so on. So when the sprinkler system doesn't work,

it's just it's a disaster.

Is it very challenging? Sorry, but will it be very challenging if this would if this amendment passes um to make that part of sort of the regular checklist that's making inspections harder or expensive or just uh you know it sounds like a pretty pretty simple requirement. you know, the sprinkler contractor gets hired to do an inspection and they look and identify uh sprinklers that may be recalled. Um,

what I want you to understand is that fire sprinklers have been around for 150 years. Over that period of time, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of different makes and models. uh and the affected sprinklers are from the mid to mid 90s to the early 2000s and probably represents uh in the grand scheme of things a very small percentage of all the sprinklers ever sold in the

United States in the last 150 years. So when you ask the question is it is it hard to yes it is hard to do. It does require a lot of effort on the fact of the contractor to actually physically get to look at inspect all those sprinklers. Uh and some of them are some of them are not easy to identify. There are some that are fairly easy to identify from the floor uh from looking

at them from the floor. And there are others that require you to literally read markings on the sprinkler that are so small you would not be able to read it unless they were physically in your hand or your face was right up right up next to them. So, it's yeah, it's a tough task. And uh one of the things we agreed to, you know, with this process is that in the past it was been if you

noticed them, tell the owner. And and everybody says, well, you put everything back on the owner. But at the end of the day, the owner has to approve this work getting done. The owner has to hire the contractor to do the work. The hire owner has to hire the contractor to do this type of inspection as well as to make any repair. Um so, it's just it's difficult. It's not going to be just

simply walking into the building and saying, "Oh, these are recalled sprinklers." I told you earlier, I've been doing this for 30 years. I can guarantee you I've walked through buildings in Massachusetts and missed recalled sprinklers. It's not it's it's it's a difficult task. It is going to cost additional money. It is going to require a little bit of little bit of an extra effort. The list that's supposed

to be generated in the building that shows the sprinklers that are there and compare it to the list of known sprinklers, that part's pretty easy. But creating the list of the sprinklers that are actually in the building is the hard part. And it's the same thing. We're still relying on the owner to do that to to do want to do that work and be willing to pay to do that work. They

have to engage a contractor to go into that building if that list is not already there and literally almost go sprinkler by sprinkler and identify everything that's in the building and compare it to the list of known sprinklers. So no matter how you slice it, it is a lot of extra effort. Uh but again, we're at a point where what happened here is not acceptable. We have to move the needle and uh simply relying

on the owners to find and identify these is is not not going to work.

Chief, I don't know if you could speak to just how often you run into situations where there are recall all these sprinklers um in Fall River in your experience that would have made a difference and speak to just the the difference that would have made.

Obviously, there's this Well, I think you're going to see a visual of that in a month, right, in uh in July when uh when when the demonstration happens here. Um so, in the wake of Gabriel House, we took a more active approach at checking for recall sprinklers starting in the um in the high-risk occupancies in our city.

And I think I've reported in the past, I've said that we've had we had six total within uh within our first 30 inspections immediately after uh Gabriel House where we we located these sprinklers. So, we know that they're out there. Uh New Bedford Fire found five or six of them as well in a in a very small number of buildings that they checked.

So, um, we know they're out there, but I I maintain, um, that that there is no fire department staff to be able to take this herculean task on of looking for every recalled sprinkler head. Uh, a lot of other things that are, uh, equally important in life safety just wouldn't be able to be done if that's what we were doing. So, um, I I applaud uh, the NFSA. I applaud um uh Captain Hler and

uh Chief Flannry for their ambition in and pushing this forward and trying to make this difference.

So given that this seems like kind of a common sense idea to do to like make sure that these things uh are not recalled, uh why was this never part of like NFDA standards before? Is it because of the herculian task like you said of having to check all these things? Well, listen, I genuinely when we look at all the major fire tragedies going back, right, from Beverly Hills Supper Club to the Station nightclub to

the Coconut Grove fire, all of those things seemed obvious and common sense after, right? And so, hindsight's 2020 and and here we are. So, we have to we have to be active and and and now's the time to really push sometimes sometimes there's push back when you try to change these things. And in the in the wake of the tragedy that happened here last July, we're not going to get the push

back that we would have gotten a month before. So that's the reality of it.

Have you gotten any push back so far? Have you gotten any push back at all?

No. I mean, but we we'll we'll we'll let you know talk to us in a month after it's filed.

If this is updated, uh then it will be required that these inspections look. Is that is that oversimplifying?

Yes. Uh there are there are a few other minor hurdles in the way. For instance, right now Massachusetts currently operates under NFPA 25 the 2020 edition.

So when I go to make this uh emergency amendment uh the TIA to NFPA 25, now it's the 26th edition. So that'll change everything on a national level. So that'll set the standard from some point moving forward. I simultaneously submitted language to the uh board of fire prevention regulations to try to get something changed here in Massachusetts Massachusetts sooner because it would take a period of time

before Massachusetts promulgates the 2026 edition of NFPA2. So, it's going to take a little time to get this done. So, even if this TIA passes and uh the NFPA 25 technical committee approves it and the standards council approves it, it's going to take time to impact uh the residents here in Massachusetts and across the country. But I think this is step one and uh we we'll cross the next bridge when we get to it.

Ask you and maybe you should notice how do you feel about taking up this fight given what happened last year?

Yeah. No. Um we're in the fire service for a reason, right? We want to take care of people.

We want to keep people safe. So, uh anytime we see something that's glaringly obvious that needs to be fixed, we want to fix it. That's what we do most of the time. We're fixers. So, we see this problem and we're just trying to fix it.

And I I will add to that that um we talk about a life safety component, we're talking about residents, but I uh I was there that night and I'm equally concerned about the firefighters who were there and I've talked about that a lot. Right? So, uh nobody wants to ask their um their members and their firefighters to have to go through what the firefighters went through that night, right? So, anything we could do

to prevent that as well um is is very important to me.

don't really hasn't really registered with them. So, um so I think the visual of this um and the story behind it and why we're doing it uh hopefully that gets some momentum and and starts to spread the word even before the law comes into effect and and and other departments across the country will start to look for this stuff. So, thank you.

Way that codes work and it's an interesting thing when you finally learn it is, you know, we we have to find a code that we like and we have to adopt it. So in Massachusetts we we look at codes, we make amendments because there's a process. So there's a review process. You want to make some amendments and by the time you're done reviewing and making the amendments, there's already a new addition of that

code out. So that's kind of why we're back a few, you know, additions.

Just seems weird. You think the the standard would be the standard.

I I would I would add that Massachusetts as far as states is concerned is actually pretty good at adopting more recent stuff. There are parts of the country that are on way older additions of the standard. And one of the things NFSA does with our codes and standards group is to constantly be working with both state, you know, county and local jurisdictions to adopt the most recent

addition of the standards. It doesn't sound like it's a big deal, uh, but these nuance changes from addition to addition, especially in, you know, the case of sprinkler change, it's a big deal. It does affect things and, uh, we work tirelessly around the country trying to get folks to adopt the latest latest and greatest.

It's it is possible to skip additions, but generally speaking, when you adopt a building code and a fire code, those building codes and fire codes then will adopt the associated standards. So, for example, when you adopt the 2021 edition of the building code or the fire code, you would adopt the associated 2019 edition for fire kind of grandfathered in. There are places that do skip. Uh there's a

classic example here in Massachusetts.

The state of Massachusetts has actually skipped ahead to a more recent addition of NFPA 241, which is the standard for buildings under construction, renovation, and demolition in response to some of the fires they've had in buildings under construction in the state. So there was a giant change in that standard and the state of Massachusetts actually jumped ahead in addition adopted on a recent stand. So

it's possible.

Thank you so much. Thank you.