Protecting the High-Rises

The city of Los Angeles has another chance to provide the same degree of fire protection for everyone who lives or works in high-rise buildings. It should jump at it.

Sprinkler systems, designed to prevent the rapid spread of fire, are required in all high-rise buildings in the city except older high-rise apartment and condominium buildings. People who live in those 97 buildings can have the same protection if the City Council approves a proposed ordinance that will come before its Police, Fire and Public Safety Committee on Jan. 23.

Since 1974 the city has required sprinkler systems for all new commercial and residential high-rise buildings. After the devastating First Interstate Tower fire last spring, the city told owners of older high-rise office buildings to start installing sprinklers. The council exempted older apartment buildings, and that omission must now be corrected.

The proposed ordinance would give building owners a year to offer plans for retrofit work and two years to do the work. They could have another year if they were also removing asbestos.

The council must keep in mind people on low or fixed incomes who live in some of the older buildings. They cannot afford hefty rent increases to cover sprinkler costs, and the proposed ordinance attempts to provide for their needs. If the city Building Department and the Fire Department agree, some high-rise owners could install less elaborate, and less expensive, sprinkler systems. But they will still need the fire pumps called for in tall buildings as well as the kind of fire doors required in an ordinance passed after another disastrous fire at the Dorothy Mae apartments on Sunset Boulevard in 1982.

Los Angeles government also needs to protect its own buildings. Toward that end, the City Council has placed on the April ballot a $60-million bond issue for sprinkler work and asbestos removal in six city buildings constructed before 1974. Those include City Hall, Parker Center and City Hall East, which houses Fire Department headquarters. Those bonds would help pay for important protection for city workers. Council action on the city’s own sprinkler situation would also deprive building owners of an excuse for delay.

The flames that killed one man and gutted four floors of the First Interstate Tower last May would not have spread as quickly had sprinklers been in place. Sprinklers did snuff out flames on the 28th floor of the Wells Fargo Tower later in the year. The lesson is obvious.