Suit Calls Firm’s Fire Sprinklers Unsafe

In response to a study showing that a fire sprinkler used in millions of homes and businesses may be defective, attorneys filed a class-action lawsuit Thursday seeking to force the manufacturer, Central Sprinklers Inc., to replace the devices.

“There are millions of these things installed nationwide, and no one knows if they will work,” said Bruce Simon, one of three attorneys who filed the Los Angeles Superior Court suit, which has as its initial plaintiffs a group of Sylmar residents who rely on Central Sprinkler’s most popular model, the Omega, in case of fire.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles fire marshal said inspectors are combing through records to determine which residences, office towers, hospitals and hotels may be relying on the Omega sprinklers. He estimated that up to 1 million of the sprinklers may be installed in buildings throughout Los Angeles.

“This is quite unique,” Fire Marshal Jimmy Smith said. “I cannot recall any [problem] of this proportion in fire protection.”

Sprinklers are considered second only to live firefighters in reliability in dousing fires. To date, no injuries or fatalities have been linked to the Omega sprinkler.

An Underwriters Laboratories test earlier this month showed a 31% failure rate in Omegas manufactured between 1983 and 1996. The failures were due to rubber O-rings that may swell and choke off water from the nozzle, the study found.

Central Sprinklers became aware of the potential malfunction in the Omega model in mid-1996, said Carmine Schiavone, vice president of customer services. The company, based in Lansdale, Penn., began replacing the rubber O-rings with silicon rings in June of that year.

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“The company has acted very responsibly since the first day when it identified the problem and identified it to the world,” Schiavone said. He said Central Sprinklers, the second-largest sprinkler manufacturer in the nation, will pay to test and replace any Omega sprinkler. The company estimates that 3 million of the sprinklers have the potential problem.

Central Sprinklers said it has been notifying property owners about the Omegas since June 1996, but it was not until the Underwriters Laboratory study and an additional study by the Fairfax, Va., County Fire Department became public last week that news reports of the potential danger began to circulate nationwide.

Plaintiffs attorney Cliff Pearson contended that Central Sprinklers must become more proactive. The lawsuit seeks to establish a nationwide class of property owners whose sprinklers would be replaced at the company’s expense.

“It’s unrealistic to think that anyone would do anything other than want to replace all of their Omega Sprinklers,” Pearson said. “They won’t know which ones work and which don’t.”

Charles Hart, a Sylmar salesman who said his fire protection company warned him last week about the Omegas in his house, is one of the initial plaintiffs--or class representatives--in the lawsuit. If a judge certifies the suit as a proper class action, thousands of property owners nationwide could join Hart.

“If you were in my situation, living in a fire zone, or an area that is prone to fires, you’d want to have a [reliable] system,” Hart said in an interview Thursday. “The sprinkler company should be responsible” for fixing the problem.

Schiavone said Central Sprinklers has already replaced 200,000 Omega sprinkler heads in 220 hotels after one failed in a fire in a Michigan hotel in 1995. Schiavone said that failure may have been due to an improper liquid in the sprinkler system.

Omega sprinklers also reportedly malfunctioned in a blaze at an Indiana juvenile detention center and a veterans hospital in New York state, although Schiavone said the latter case also may have been caused by improper coolants. The Maryland fire marshal in May barred any installation of Omega sprinklers with rubber O-rings because of their alleged unreliability.