Sprinklers Spark Debate at UCI

They house some of the most vulnerable people on the UC Irvine campus--infants to preschoolers. But these four buildings, like about 135 others on campus, lack firefighting sprinklers.

That doesn’t mean the buildings have no defense against fires. Sprinklers are just one piece of the increasingly sophisticated equipment installed to protect lives and property, including alarms and sensors, as well as fire-retardant construction materials and building designs that contain blazes.

After a blaze at UC Irvine’s Frederick Reines Hall on Monday, the question of how best to protect campus buildings against fires has set off a debate between campus officials and firefighters, especially since state fire codes that govern the university are less stringent than the county code.

Firefighters would like sprinklers in every building. UC Irvine officials say they’re not required and that water can make a chemical fire worse. Chancellor Ralph Cicerone has pledged to look into the issue.

The fire started after a doctoral student’s experiment exploded in a chemistry lab on the second floor of Reines.

Firefighters credited fire doors and walls with keeping the blaze at bay, even though there were no sprinklers.

After the fire, the campus released a map showing that about two-thirds of its buildings are without sprinklers, while many other buildings have them only in selected areas. Among the more vulnerable buildings were the child-care centers and two student dormitories with no sprinklers, and a third dormitory with the equipment only in the living room area, not the bedrooms.

Campus architect Rebekah Gladson defends the use of other firefighting measures, saying that by the time sprinklers turn on, it’s too late. “You want an early warning system to get people out,” she said.

Reines opened in 1990 but was constructed under the 1979 building codes that were in place at the time. The Orange County code required sprinklers. But because UC Irvine is owned by the state, the California code took precedence, and it did not require sprinklers.

At issue are fire codes that sometimes leave even fire officials uncertain about what is needed in a given building. Not only can state and federal buildings have different standards than privately owned ones next door, but those standards depend on how big the building is, what it’s used for, how close it is to a fire station and a host of other issues.

As an example, Laura Blaul, deputy fire marshal with the Orange County Fire Authority, said that state rules still would not require sprinklers if Reines Hall were built today, but Randy Roxson, chief of fire prevention in the Office of State Fire Marshal, said they would.

Orange County’s codes require sprinklers in any building of more than 6,000 square feet.

In the wake of the laboratory fire, UC Irvine officials said that sprinklers might prove undesirable in a building with so many chemicals because they might react to water and exacerbate the blaze.

Blaul disagreed with that and said she plans to talk to campus administrators about the issue.

High-tech industries, semiconductor fabrication plants and plating shops that use water-reactive chemicals have put in sprinkler systems, Blaul said.

“Even if water lands on the chemical, the best way to put it out is just put more water on it,” Blaul said. “Better to do that than wait for us to get there and put 250 gallons of water on per minute with a hose stream, instead of just having sprinkler heads getting it early.”

Blaul also said that in a building like Reines Hall, sprinklers would allow the university to house more chemicals in its laboratories. Without them, the code limits the total amount of chemicals that can be stored, Blaul said. For example, only 60 gallons of flammable liquid and 55 gallons of corrosive liquids can be stored in Reines, she said. If the building had sprinklers, those numbers could double, she said.

As it happens, UC Irvine has undergone a conversion over the last decade. Since then, all new buildings have included sprinklers, even when they weren’t required.

Gladson said the main reason was finances, not safety. The university is self-insured, so it pays its own fire damage.

And sprinklers, she said, are best at saving buildings, while smoke alarms, which react first, are best at saving lives. “It’s to our advantage to preserve property,” she said, “so we’ll go over and above the code to do that.”

UC Irvine’s Early Childhood Education Center, the Infant/Toddler Center, the Children’s Center and Verano Preschool lack sprinklers, but are equipped with smoke alarms so adults can quickly herd children outside, and with sensors that alert the Orange County Fire Authority.

The buildings were constructed between 1968 and 1990. They still could be built without sprinklers, according to the state code, Blaul said.