City to explore retrofitting high-rises with sprinklers

NEWS

89 high-rises in San Antonio currently without sprinklers

Posted YESTERDAY, 5:59 PM Updated YESTERDAY, 6:33 PM

SAN ANTONIO - San Antonio currently has 89 high-rise buildings that do not have sprinkler systems.

San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said Wednesday that the city will begin a three to six-month process to explore the costs, benefits and challenges of retrofitting the structures with sprinkler systems.

"This is an opportunity (for) management of a tragedy that we have to take advantage of, unfortunately, and make sure we can have that dialogue with the citizens of San Antonio," Hood said.

The city's efforts were sparked by a fire at the Wedgewood Senior Apartments in December in which six people died.

"A sprinkler system would have basically knocked the fire out," Hood told the City Council's Public Safety Committee.

Of the 89 high-rises without sprinklers in San Antonio, 36are residential and five cater specifically to senior citizens.

In 1982 the city changed its fire codes to require sprinklers in any new high-rise, buildings 75 feet and higher, built after 1982. In 1994, the city required all new apartment buildings three or more stories in height to be fitted with sprinklers. In 2004, officials made it a requirement that all new residential occupancies, except single-family homes, be outfitted with sprinklers.

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City to explore retrofitting high-rises with sprinklers