A new way to lower fire deaths? Build new homes
Allowing the construction of modern apartments could improve fire safety and reduce fire deaths nationwide, according to a new report out Tuesday.
Researchers from Pew Charitable Trusts found that apartment buildings built in the 21st century have fire deaths at one-sixth the rate of older apartments and single-family homes, and one-fourth that of newer single-family homes.
This is despite concerns among some that apartment buildings pose additional dangers in a fire, from the presence of more kitchens and other potential fire starters to the need for residents to go down many floors to escape in an emergency.
"When we're talking about fire safety in the U.S., we're really talking about a problem with older buildings," said Alex Horowitz, co-author of the report and project director of Pew's housing policy initiative. "Newer housing is much safer when it comes to fire safety."
The report found that in 2023, fire deaths were 17 times more common in apartment buildings constructed prior to 1970, where there were 8.5 deaths per million residents, than in those built since 2010, at just 0.5 per million residents. This held true regardless of the size of the apartment building.
Newer single-family homes were also safer than older ones, with those built before 2000 seeing 8.6 deaths per million residents compared to 4.9 deaths per million residents for those built in 2000 or later.
While the report did not determine what specific features made modern buildings safer, Horowitz said it was likely due to safety measures that used to be uncommon or nonexistent but are now ubiquitous. Multifamily housing in particular is often legally required to include sprinklers, self-closing doors, connected smoke detectors, fire-rated walls and noncombustible stairways.
Because of this, the report argues that other regulatory barriers to housing construction, such as restrictive zoning and parking requirements, should be relaxed in the interest of safety.
"We know that's good for housing affordability. We know that's good for housing availability," Horowitz said. "It would also improve fire safety and this is the first time we can say that with confidence."
He added that more, newer options would allow people to move out of older, more fire-prone buildings.
Earlier this year, Pew published another report looking at the requirement for apartment buildings to have two staircases, a rule that is common in the United States, purportedly to give residents multiple avenues of escape in case of a fire. However, that report found that single-stair buildings were no less safe, and in fact are common in other countries.
Housing advocates have said legalizing single-stair housing would allow much more construction, both because adding an additional staircase makes a project much more expensive and because single-stair buildings can be smaller and fit more easily into the existing urban environment.
Some have called for other fire codes, such as sprinkler requirements, to be relaxed, too, in the name of housing production. Horowitz emphasized that Pew has only studied the efficacy of having multiple staircases, and said they were focused on breaking down other barriers.
"There's been this tension between whether we should have fire safety or have housing availability and affordability ... The way we get out of the housing shortage and improve affordability and reduce homelessness is the same way we improve fire safety," he said. "Legalizing modern apartments and getting more of them built is worth doing on its own, just as a way to improve fire safety."
In July, 10 people were killed in a fire at a Fall River assisted living facility. In the weeks following, it was revealed that the owner of Gabriel House had been notified just days before that the facility had missed its five-year sprinkler inspection .
A MassLive investigation found that there is no centralized way of tracking sprinkler inspections in the state, and local fire departments frequently rely on an honor system for building owners to stay up to date.
In Massachusetts, the homebuilding industry has historically lobbied against residential fire sprinkler proposals , arguing they raise the cost of housing and that efforts should instead focus on ensuring working fire alarms in all buildings.
According to the Department of Fire Services, more than 70% of all fire-related injuries and deaths in Massachusetts take place at home, yet residential occupancies are the least likely to be protected by fire sprinklers.
MassLive reporter Hadley Barndollar contributed reporting for this story.
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