Valley Independent Sentinel

Derby, Can You Spare Five Dollars (To Save A Life)?

by Eugene Driscoll | Jul 1, 2009 12:44 pm

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Posted to: Derby

Would you pay five dollars if it meant potentially saving a volunteer firefighter’s life?

That is the basic question David Lenart’s proposed law poses to city residents.

Lenart, a member of the city’s Board of Aldermen and a Bridgeport firefighter, is pushing for a local law that would require a sticker be affixed to new construction in Derby.

A $5 fee would be imposed during the permit phase of a given project.

A public hearing on the proposed law is scheduled for July 23 in front of the Board of Aldermen.

The reflective stickers, to be displayed in a prominent spot on the building, would tell firefighters two crucial bits of information.

— Is the structure supported by engineered lumber?

— Does the building feature truss construction?

Engineered lumber is, man-made, lightweight wood, often recycled. The wood is sturdy, but it burns faster and loses it structural integrity much quicker than other lumber types, according to a recent article in the National Fire Protection Association Journal.

“It’s very strong, but under fire conditions it fails rapidly,” Lenart said.

Not sure what truss construction is? Look up toward the ceiling the next time you’re in a big-box store, such as the Home Depot in Derby.

It’s perfectly safe building material, but is quick to collapse in fires.

“With older houses, usually it takes 20 minutes of fire burning on the structural members before there is a collapse. With newer construction, it can be as little to three to five minutes,” Lenart said. “Figuring the average response time to a fire is about three to five minutes, firefighters are going in the front door and its collapsing,” Lenart said.

At an Aldermen meeting last month, the proposed law had the backing of Derby’s building inspector and the fire marshal.

The Proposed Law (PDF)

It also had the support of New Haven Firefighter Frank Ricci, who is chairman of the Connecticut Council of Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

He urged the Aldermen to support the law, saying it could save lives.

New York already requires stickers on engineered lumber.

Greencastle, Ind. also employs the sticker system. There, the stickers are put on electrical meters. The sticker comes with documentation telling the homeowner, “This sticker does not mean that that your building is hazardous. It does affect your insurance rates or cause any other concern for the building owner. They are only applied to alert firefighters of a potential danger of collapse of the building under fire conditions.”

Some logistics of the Derby law still need to be worked out, such as where the sticker will go on a building. Officials are also researching a way to affix the stickers to existing construction.

One possible option — a building official or fire marshal, when responding to a call at a given address, may issue a sticker if engineered lumber is spotted.

The Internet has tons of articles on the issues raised by Lenart. The articles used as reference for this article included:

NFPA Journal

Firehouse.com

The Kitchen Table

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