Fire safety remains on the front burner in Norwalk after two recent fires that displaced residents of StoneWood Condominiums on Richards Avenue and the Norwalk Housing Authority-owned apartments on Monterey Place.
With multistory apartment complexes sprouting across the city, residents are understandably concerned about the safety of the materials used to build them.
On the one hand, new construction requires use of fire alarms, sprinkler systems, and other safety features. On the other hand, Connecticut state building codes still allow the use of non-treated materials such as wood in apartment buildings of up to four stories.
Fortunately, those building codes are currently under review. The Department of Administrative Services is seeking public input until Feb. 16, making this an excellent time for us all to raise questions and concerns about fire safety throughout the state. A public hearing is scheduled for Jan. 24 at 10 a.m. in the Legislative Office Building in Hartford.
The new codes are due to be adopted July 1.
Under the current codes, apartment buildings four stories or less can be built using Type V construction, the least restrictive method. Type 1, the most restrictive, requires all building materials to be noncombustible.
New York City allows no Type V construction. New Jersey allows it for apartment buildings three stories or less.
If hazardous materials are allowed under building codes, city officials can do nothing to prevent their use. Case in point: the petroleum-based vinyl siding on the exterior of StoneWood Condominiums, which Norwalk Chief Building Official Bill Ireland likens to “putting gasoline on the building.”
Fortunately, a safety feature — fire-resistant interior walls — prevented the StoneWood fire from spreading laterally, limiting it to the area on and above the third floor balcony where it began.
Even as modern methods, materials, and safety features — sprinkler systems, firewalls, and the like — help contain fires and save lives, other factors — environmentally sound double-pane windows, and increased use of polyester in clothing and other personal belongings — make today’s fires hotter, Norwalk Fire Marshal Broderick Sawyer says.
Winter is fire season. While the number of fires decreases during the cold months, the number of building fires goes up. Overloaded circuits in older houses are especially susceptible to electrical fires. Most are preventable.
In all kinds of dwellings, increased use of space heaters, electric blankets, wood stoves and other heating equipment is partly to blame for the uptick of winter fires. So is the lack of moisture in cold winter air.
And frozen hydrants — like the one outside the Monterey Place apartment building — only make these seasonal fires harder to fight.
Though stricter building codes add to the cost of new construction, they also make for safer buildings. That’s a message we hope finds its way to Hartford before another winter ends.