Fire Rips Through Textile Factory In Southwest Charlotte
[6/29/2007] - CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A three-alarm fire ripped through a southwest Charlotte textile factory early Friday morning. The fire started on a pallet in the storage room of U.S. Cotton. more

Hotel Under Construction In Tampa On Fire
[6/29/2007] - A Best Western hotel under construction on Waters Avenue in Tampa is on fire. The 3-alarm fire started around 10:45 a.m. Friday on the fourth floor. There are now around 60 firefighters on the scene. more

Bring residential fire sprinklers into the code
[6/27/2007] - INSTALLING FIRE SPRINKLERS is a good idea that we've advocated for a long time. We've focused our discussions in the past on the victims of fires in unsprinklered buildings, and to us that meant the building occupants. Perhaps more than any trade group that I'm familiar with, the National Fire Sprinkler Association appeals to the emotions of its contractor members at its meetings to stir them to action. That's easy to understand because of the life-or-death situations that sprinkler contractors regularly encounter. link

Sprinkler system credited with saving man from fire
[6/26/2007] - OLATHE, Kan. (AP) - Firefighters say a sprinkler system saved a man after flames broke out in an Olathe apartment this morning. After units arrived at about 5 am, firefighters entered a smoky third-floor apartment to find a man unconscious on the living room floor. They carried him outside to waiting paramedics, who gave him medical care and then rushed him to a hospital. Fire Chief Mike Hall said the sprinkler system doused the fire in a bedroom and triggered the building's alarm system. The fire left $50,000 damage and the cause is under investigation. more

Few Buildings In S.C. Have Sprinklers
[6/24/2007] - South Carolina - In Columbia, fewer than 3 percent of roughly 7,500 places inspected by the city fire marshal's office have sprinklers. Many other stores, hotels, restaurants, schools and government buildings throughout South Carolina also don't have sprinklers, officials say, though exact numbers are not known. An analysis by The State newspaper found only a third of the state's hotels have sprinklers and meet the standard the federal government uses for its employees. link

Buildings lag on sprinkler systems
[6/23/2007] - COLUMBIA -- In Columbia, fewer than 3 percent of roughly 7,500 places inspected by the city fire marshal's office have sprinklers. link

Significant Gains Made in Support of the Residential Fire Sprinkler Concept
[6/21/2007] - Patterson, NY (PRWEB) June 21, 2007 -- The National Fire Sprinkler Association (NFSA), the longest-tenured fire sprinkler advocacy organization in the U.S., has reported that the International Code Council (ICC) offered growing support despite its rejection of single-family fire sprinkler requirements for the International Residential Code (IRC) supplement, at a hearing held May 22 in Rochester, NY. Despite getting a majority 56 percent of the vote to overturn the committee's initial decision to not include sprinkler requirements in the IRC supplement, it was not the two-thirds majority needed to pass the motion from the floor. link

UA Fire Sprinkler Union Pledges to Work With Policymakers to Prevent Fire Tragedies and Protect Firefighters
[6/21/2007] - ORLAND PARK, Ill., June 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following the tragedy at the Sofa Super Store warehouse in Charleston, SC, that resulted in nine firefighter fatalities, the United Association (UA) Fire Sprinkler Fitters Union has pledged to work closely with fire service and building department groups to upgrade codes and make buildings safer for occupants and firefighters. link

Experts Say Sprinklers Would Prevent Multiple Deaths in Fires, but They're Still Not Mandatory
[6/20/2007] - As people in Charlotte, S.C., mourn the loss of nine of their firefighters in Monday's furniture store blaze, it turns out the warehouse did not have one of the most fundamental fire safety features — sprinklers. link

Mayor: Store exempt from sprinkler law
[6/20/2007] - The Sofa Super Store destroyed by fire Monday night was 31,300 square feet -- well above the state threshold mandating sprinklers for commercial buildings bigger than 12,000 square feet. But because it was an older building, the furniture store was apparently exempt from stricter building codes dating to the early 1990s that were strengthened again in both Carolinas early this decade. link

Charleston Fire: 9 Die In South Carolina Warehouse Fire
[6/19/2007] - Charleston Fire - A fire has broken out in a Charleston, South Carolina furniture warehouse, and has left 9 firefighters dead. The warehouse, the Sofa Superstore on Savannah Highway, had no sprinkler system, and when the fire grew larger, the building could not handle the heat and damage. Because the store was not built to handle such a severe and large fire, the blaze was able to grow and reach unbelievable temperatures. more

Fire Sprinklers Would Have Saved Lives in Furniture Warehouse Inferno, According to AFSA
[6/19/2007] - DALLAS, June 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An installed automatic fire sprinkler system would have saved lives in a furniture store and warehouse inferno that occurred in Charleston, SC on June 18. link

Arch Chemical site OK today after fire
[6/17/2007] - A fire in a chemical mixing pump at Arch Chemical on Saturday night created a lot of smoke, but caused little damage. more

Second fire in two months hits Dover apartment building
[6/15/2007] - DOVER — A mattress caught fire inside an apartment at 243 Central Ave. Thursday, making it the second fire at the downtown apartment complex in a little over two months. link

Fire sprinkler saves apartment building
[6/14/2007] - An unattended pot of food on a stove in a fourth-floor apartment at the University Town Center building at 1101 Pacific Ave. caught fire at 1 a.m. Wednesday, setting off a sprinkler, according to the Santa Cruz Fire Department. No one was injured in the incident. more

Nursing home in compliance with sprinkler system
[6/14/2007] - Last week, the Alabama Department of Public Health announced that Alabama’s nursing homes are in full compliance with fire sprinkler requirements. link

New sprinkler laws top fire safety improvements
[6/13/2007] - Requiring sprinkler systems in high-rise buildings would go a long way to reducing the number of elderly residents who die in fires, says a county task force that spent a year examining the problem. link

Rockdale Apartment Fire Destroys Building
[6/12/2007] - CONYERS, Ga. (CBS46) -- A fire destroyed an entire apartment building in Rockdale County Tuesday Morning, leaving many residents with just the clothes on their backs. Battalion Chief Robert Norton from the Rockdale County Fire Department said the fire could have been slowed down if the building had fire walls between each apartment and a sprinkler system. more

Size of fire slows investigation
[6/12/2007] - The magnitude of a fire last week that destroyed two businesses on South Spring Street has slowed the investigation into its cause, officials said Monday. “If the sprinkler system had been fully operational, it is most likely that the fire would have been limited to one building and extinguished with only moderate damage,” fire authorities said in a new release, urging business owners to have their sprinkler systems inspected and serviced annually. more

Seniors at greater risk for fire death
[6/12/2007] - Sprinkler systems should be installed in older and high-rise residential buildings, and more money should be spent on public education and services for seniors. link

Fire damages Redondo Chart House Restaurant
[6/12/2007] - Fire sprinklers and firefighters contained a blaze that ignited today in the kitchen of the Chart House Restaurant in Redondo Beach. The fire apparently started when a worn gas line broke in the kitchen. A spark likely ignited the gas at 7:30 a.m., Redondo Beach fire Division Chief Carl Whitaker said more

Two believed dead in Toppenish apartment fire
[6/11/2007] - Damage to the wood-and-cinder building, which lacked a sprinkler system, was so extensive that firefighters were waiting for the arrival of heavy equipment to begin searching the wreckage for the missing occupants. more

Rockville Bail Bonds Office Set on Fire
[6/11/2007] - The fire had been extinguished by the sprinkler system," by the time firefighters arrived, Piringer said. more

Fatal Fires Involving Seniors an 'Epidemic'
[6/11/2007] - The Montgomery County Council will be looking at regulatory measures that could help and Leggett says the county will hire a point person to spearhead the effort within the fire department. Among the recommendations in the task force report: promoting the retrofitting of homes with sprinkler systems. more

Kitchen fire breaks out in Woodstock apartment
[6/11/2007] - WOODSTOCK – A small kitchen fire resulted in minor damage to an apartment building on Leah Lane on Monday evening before the building’s sprinkler system extinguished the flames, a fire official said. more

Burned Motel Lacked Room Sprinklers
[6/7/2007] - The motel in Riverdale where five people died during a fast-moving fire did not have sprinklers inside the rooms because it was built before the sprinkler codes were passed, fire officials said. more

State nursing homes complete sprinkler system installations
[6/6/2007] - Alabama is among the first states in the nation to have automatic fire sprinkler systems throughout every nursing home. Although the Life Safety Code allowed existing nursing homes to remain unsprinklered under certain circumstances, the State Board of Health, by an amendment in 2004 to the nursing facilities licensure rule, required all nursing homes to have complete sprinkler systems. In 2004, 74 of Alabama's 242 nursing homes had no sprinkler systems or partial sprinkler systems. Now, all 74 homes have installed full fire sprinkler systems. more

New Information: 3-Alarm High-Rise Fire
[6/2/2007] - Memphis fire investigators have released new information about Friday’s 3-alarm apartment fire near the University of Memphis. Investigators say the building did not have a sprinkler system, and they don’t know if the apartments had working smoke detectors. more