County Commission gets clarification on sprinkler requirements

In March the Morgan County Commission enacted an ordinance presented to them by Fire Chief Boyd Carrigan mandating sprinkler systems in bigger new homes. In the time since county commissioners had enough questions that they devoted a work session to the issue on Oct. 29 and met with Carrigan, Utah Deputy Fire Marshal John Richie and Morgan County Marshal Dave Rich.

Commissioners say they thought the requirements were absolute for all counties but have since learned that in other counties  – such as Wasatch and Cache  – requirements are different.

“When this was presented to us … the interpretation or understanding that I had personally was that this had to be done and not only had to be done but it was by ordinance, by international fire code had to be done – every county, every city, doesn’t matter who, we don’t care who you are – this is the number and it has to be done,” Commissioner Jared Anderson said.

In the discussion, commissioners learned that the authority having jurisdiction could be more lenient if it has more fire services available to residents. 

“There’s not a one size that fits all and that’s why having an authority having jurisdiction who understands the equipment that they have, the staffing that they have, the ability to respond to fires they can make those determinations,” Morgan County Attorney Garrett Smith responded. “I think what Chief Carrigan is saying is we’re already underserved and we’re building and there’s high demand for building like crazy and so do we continue to exacerbate a terrible problem without having some mitigating efforts being done?”

Wasatch County was brought up by Anderson as an example of a county that only requires sprinkler systems for structures above 10,000 square feet. However, Wasatch County Fire has many more resources than Morgan County, Commissioner Robert McConnell pointed out including “a chief, three assistant chiefs, four battalion chiefs and multiple captains,” he said. “They have multiple firehouses dispersed throughout their county. They do have a fire impact fee and they’re building another main firehouse. So they have a lot more resources in their full-time department to fight fire than we have with our single station.” 

One concern is the cost of such sprinkler systems which can easily reach $30,000 a resident told commissioners. The resident is building a new home which is 1,400 feet above the sprinkler system threshold, commissioners said.

“These people are moving into our county, right?” Carrigan responded. “They expect us to provide fire service; we can’t provide fire service if we have to haul water so much… If we have to haul water then it puts a huge burden on us, on the taxpayers. We have to now buy more water tenders, and we have to have a place to put these water tenders. So we have to build more buildings; more cost of the tax payers versus the person moving in. Yes it’s $30,000 but at least now we have some fire protection.” 

Commissioner Matt Wilson, who said he has seen very few house fires in Morgan County in his lifetime, asked if all these safeguards are really necessary.

“We all have risk in our lives,” he said. “We have to take a certain amount of risk and say ‘Here we go;’ we can’t have big brother always watching over us and taking care of us we. We try and have to use our common sense and say, ‘This is what I feel like I can do.’ And that’s why some of the residents say ‘I’ll sign something; you know for crying out loud I’m not that dumb. I can handle my own situations.’”

If such a home does not comply with code, no insurance company is going to insure it, Carrigan responded. “That’s why these codes are in place and again it puts a burden on the

taxpayer. His house catches on fire all our apparatus has to go out. The taxpayer has to pay for all this apparatus, all this manpower and again, if his house catches fire and let’s say it’s close enough to another house to catch on fire now the burden’s on that or it moves from the home to the wildland and now the taxpayers have to pay a lot of money to put out the wildland fire.”

Commissioners also talked about implementing a fire impact fee, something Morgan County had in the past but does not now have in place. 

At the conclusion of the discussion, Carrigan agreed to bring back information to the commissioners on the requirements other counties have along with their resources, so that commissioners could answer questions from residents.

I think our biggest problem, our biggest issue is that we have constituents that come to us and say, ‘We feel like you’re being arbitrary with us,’ and we’d really love to have some good data to say, ‘You know I can understand your feelings. This is why the ordinance is the way it is, and you know, let’s work on a plan to try to change that,’” Commission Chair Mike Newton said. λ