Fire Sparks Sprinkler Debate

Your article on the controversy over the retrofitting of older skyscrapers in Los Angeles with fire preventive sprinkler systems (Metro, Sept. 18) is an issue that reappears every few years, just about the same time another person loses his or her life in a high-rise fire.

The method of calculating the cost versus benefit of such retrofittings is reminiscent of so-called bean counters at auto companies. Such people have been used to determine if a recall of a defective automobile is cost-effective, based on the equation: lawsuits from accident victims versus the cost of a repair.

The loss of a single human life here in Los Angeles resulting from such “calculating” is unconscionable. A full retrofitting of a high-rise building may cost a homeowner several hundred dollars a month as an assessment. I would support Councilman Nate Holden’s idea of selective retrofitting. That is to say, the installation of sprinklers throughout a building, but only in strategic locations in that building. The cost of this type of construction is far less expensive than a complete retrofit.

MATTHEW S. RODMAN, Los Angeles