When Arvada firefighters responded to a May house fire on Robb Street that killed three people, they found two survivors trying to squeeze through a basement window too small to qualify as an escape route. Firefighters helped pull them out.
In February, a fire sparked by old, faulty wiring closed a popular local restaurant in Olde Town for eight weeks. No one was injured.
And in January, the body of a 55-year-old substance abuse counselor was found in the rubble of a Wadsworth Boulevard office building destroyed by fire. The building did not have a modern smoke alarm system or sprinklers.
None of the buildings violated Arvada building, safety and fire codes. Because they were older buildings, they fell under previous codes’ less stringent safety requirements. But these incidents reflect a national dilemma: Constantly evolving safety standards leave aging structures falling behind, with cities and property owners grappling with how to balance incremental safety improvements against expense, according to fire and buildingcode experts.
Owners of commercial buildings and homes can choose to update those standards and be safer, or not. For now, the status quo is OK with city government and fire officials, but in light of recent fires, several residents say stronger safety codes are needed.
City and fire officials would not state whether they think the code should be stronger, but emphasized it is the minimum standard for safety.
Mayor Marc Williams said he was hesitant to make certain safety standards a requirement for all residents.
“As we consider modifications to the code, I will certainly consider all evidence presented, consider staff input and citizen comments,” he said. He noted that residents can upgrade safety features in their homes and properties despite council’s decisions.
The city council, as part of its ongoing review of city codes, is expected to adopt the 2015 International Building Code next year, which requires new homes to have an egress escape for all sleeping rooms, basements and habitable attics, said Brita Van Horne, the city’s chief building official. Those requirements are similar to what exists now.
In 2007, the city had unanimously adopted a more stringent requirement: Any homeowners intending to sell their homes had to fix recorded code violations, such as installing a needed egress window. In 2010, however, pressure from real estate agents, homeowners and the fire department persuaded the city council to eliminate that requirement. They argued the expense for those updates was too heavy a burden in slow economic times.
But for Lorraine Anderson, an Arvada councilwoman who served on the council from 1985 to 2009, the 2007 decision to adopt that safety requirement, along with a new set of building, property maintenance and residential codes, was the right step to improving residents’ safety.
Alternate escape routes are especially important, she said. “I really think there ought to be a way to escape from the basement, just like I can get out of my room … We have to make homes safer for people, especially with an aging population.”
A complicated system
National agencies develop what they call minimum code guidelines for home and building safety, updating them every three years to reflect the latest technology and fire prevention developments. Local governments then take those guidelines and can revise and adapt them.
Changes to codes are often minimal, such as tidying up a confusing turn of phrase or making sure one section doesn’t contradict another. Sometimes they represent a bigger shift in basic fire safety philosophy, such as a recent suggestion by the National Fire Protection Association to add automatic sprinklers to all homes.
But there’s no way, either financially or construction-wise, that residents could keep up, Van Horne said.
“Yes, there are things that in the current code would be different,” she said. But “if you want to be proactive and do these things to improve the situation, it’s more than just egress windows. There are other things … you would never be able to. The whole world would be under construction the whole time.”
Another challenge is educating home and business owners about shifting regulations and how they apply to existing buildings, said Kristin Bigda, a principal fire engineer with the National Fire Protection Association, which created one of the national fire codes used in Jefferson County.
“To ensure safety and compliance,” she said, “is to stay up to date with the current code for existing buildings,” such as maintaining and testing one’s fire alarm systems, sprinklers and fire doors in homes and commercial buildings.
Just because an older home doesn’t have the latest updates, however, doesn’t mean it’s unsafe, Van Horne said.
“If it’s safe the day that it (the home) was built and you don’t change anything, you don’t have to bring it up to code,” she said. “There are a lot of things that can be in a house that may not meet code requirements, but that doesn’t mean it’s not safe to live in.”
The code today
According to the 2015 International Building Code section on emergency escapes, new homes are required to have a secondary means of escape, such as a fire door or an egress window in each basement bedroom.
Arvada’s code says all homes built in 1981 and after must have a minimum of one egress window in the basement — both finished and unfinished — including one window per basement bedroom and other bedrooms. Houses built before 1981, such as the Robb Street home constructed in 1961, are not required to have an egress window — whether the basement is finished or not — unless they are renovated or an addition is built.
An egress window is designed to be large enough to easily let a person out in case of emergency. The national code states it should open a minimum of 5.7 square feet so that a fully equipped firefighter and a person being rescued can move through at the same time.
The egress exit, whether a door or a window, is a requirement for all homes — new and existing — in the National Fire Protection Association’s Life Safety Code, which has been in existence for several decades, said Gregory Harrington, a principal fire engineer with the association.
“It simply provides an alternative way out of the structure,” he said. “If there is a fire they can’t always get out through the primary means of escape. We see it happen all the time where there’s a fire fatality in a residence where that primary means of escape was blocked.”
The Robb Street house fire
Severely damaged in the May 14 fire, the house at 6152 Robb St. was operated by Parker Personal Care Homes as a host home for developmentally disabled individuals. It had two bedrooms in the basement, according to county property records. They did not have egress windows, Arvada Fire Marshal Kevin Ferry said.
It was unclear when the basement bedrooms were added to the ranch-style, three-bedroom home. The only permit for additional bedrooms that city officials said they could find was one for renovating the attached garage.
If the basement bedrooms had been added before 1981, egress windows would not have been required under then city code. If added in 1981 or after, city code would have required at least one egress window for the basement and any sleeping rooms in the basement.
Scott Parker, owner of Parker Personal Care Homes, bought the home in 2002, according to county assessor records. State business records show the agency was incorporated in 2001. In October 2015, he transferred ownership of the property from himself to 6152 Robb Street LLC, one of his company’s host homes.
The 2007 codes included a section requiring homeowners whose home had recorded violations with the city to fix those issues before they could sell the home.
But in 2010, in the midst of an economic recession, members of the community and the city’s real estate and fire department sectors complained about the expense this section was costing homeowners. Area contractors say retrofitting a home to install an egress window can cost from $3,000 to $5,000. The city council voted 7-0 to eliminate the section.
Van Horne said the city has no recorded violations for the Robb Street home. If the 2007 law had been in place when Parker transferred ownership of the home last year — and a violation on egress windows had been recorded with the city — he would have had to update the windows.
Parker, citing the ongoing investigation into the fire, declined to answer questions about the home’s safety standards or his business, which includes other host homes for developmentally and physically disabled individuals in Lakewood and Arvada.
“However, once the review is completed,” he wrote in a July 19 email, “I would be pleased to discuss the significant safety standards and process we undertake to ensure the safety of our clients.”
The initial call about the fire was made at 1:32 a.m. from a woman resident at the home, saying she could see flames on the porch and she couldn’t open her window, fire dispatch records show.
Ferry, citing the ongoing investigation, would not say whether the caller was in the basement or on the main floor.The cause of the fire has not been released, and the case remains under investigation with the Jefferson County District Attorney, a standard procedure for any fatal fire, the office’s Communications Director Pam Russell said.
Firefighters were on the scene within three minutes. They found all six people in the home needed assistance to escape the building, including the two trying to climb through the basement window and another person in the garage bedroom, according to dispatch records. Ferry would not elaborate on why they needed assistance to escape.
A 39-year-old disabled woman, a young mother and her 4-year-old daughter died of smoke inhalation, according to the Jefferson County coroner’s report. The mother had burns to her airways and lungs.
Firefighters found all three on the main floor of the home, Arvada police Det. Trevor Hettinger said. He said the mother and daughter were not in the basement at the time of the fire. It was unclear whether the disabled woman, who was in a wheelchair, had been any place else other than the main floor.
A seventh resident was not in the house at the time.
Ferry said the front door was not the only exit from the house, but he would not elaborate on the location of other exits or what kind they were, citing the ongoing investigation.
Colorado Community Media requested the investigation reports through a Colorado criminal justice documents request. But the district attorney’s office denied the request, citing the ongoing investigation.
The Schoolhouse Kitchen fire
Early in the morning of Feb. 20, faulty wiring in a kitchen wall started a fire at Schoolhouse Kitchen and Libations, an American-style restaurant at 5660 Olde Wadsworth Blvd. in Olde Town Arvada.
Before opening, the restaurant had undergone a major renovation in the winter of 2014, which brought much of the building up to today’s safety standards. Some of the renovated section — which was Arvada’s first schoolhouse — was originally built in 1882, but county assessor’s records do not list the year the rest of the restaurantwas constructed. The wall in question was not part of the remodel, and the wiring inside was not required to be brought up to modern standards, Ferry said.
The part of the kitchen that had the fire was actually one of the only parts that we did not remodel,” restaurant owner Scott Spears said. “… It was existing from the previous owner. If we had known about the issue, we definitely would have fixed it.”
The restaurant was closed for eight weeks before reopening.
“Fire safety is extremely important to pay attention to in older buildings like ours,” Spears said. “It is scary because there were different materials used in the past that are not nearly as safe as materials today … many of which are not allowed in buildings anymore.”
The Scenic Heights fire
In the Jan. 2 fire of the Scenic Heights Professional Building at 6245 Wadsworth Blvd., in which substance abuse counselor John Rutter died, a fire department investigation listed the cause as undetermined, Ferry said, adding that it began between the first and second levels of the building.
The building, now torn down, was built in 1974 and had single-station smoke alarms — like those commonly installed in homes — rather than a fire alarm system required in many commercial structures today, Ferry said.
A more updated system would have connected the alarms and all would have gone off at the first detection of smoke.
The building also had no sprinklers, now required now under city code for new buildings, depending on height, building occupancy and size. Sprinklers, Ferry said, add an increased level of protection for all buildings.
Because the building was built in 1974, the owners were not required to update the safety systems, such as installing an automatic sprinkler system and connected fire alarms. Both would have instantly alerted tenants to the fire at the first indication, Ferry said.
“Although a fire alarm and/or fire sprinkler system installation may not be required by a code,” he said in a July 27 email, “it does not mean that a building owner could not go ahead and install one or both to increase the life-safety of a building above what the building and fire codes require.”
The office building had no recorded code violations, Ferry said.
In an Aug. 1 email, the owner of the building, Jamie St. John, declined to comment.
If the building were built today, based on its size and other factors, Ferry said it probably wouldn’t be required to have sprinklers or the comprehensive smoke alarm, but it would be built with more safety features and fire resistant construction.
The single-station smoke alarms are “not considered as an appropriate life-safety device in a commercial building,” he said in an email. “Single-station smoke alarms are designed, listed and intended for the residential setting.”
The body of Rutter, who worked for Creative Treatment Options, a substance abuse treatment agency and one of the building’s tenants, was found two days after the fire. He died of smoke inhalation, the coroner said.
For someone caught in a fire, the difference between life and death can be seconds, fire officials say.
“Smoke is the primary element in a fire that causes death and disability,” said Fire Marshal Bruce Kral of the West Metro Fire Protection District. “One breath can be enough to be fatal or cause lifelong complications, including lung disease and cancer.”
A question of safety
City, regional and national code officials said the adopted standards should be regarded as the minimum someone can do to protect a home or business from an emergency.
“Any building can increase safety,” Ferry said. “Codes are a minimum standard.”
National codes have shifted away from requiring only egress windows, said Harrington from the National Fire Protection Agency. The code now requires new homes to have automatic sprinklers to help put out fires at the first hint of smoke detection.
“There’s nothing better than that,” he said, stating the average cost to add a system is comparable to installing carpet — about $1.25 to $1.50 per square foot.
Along with that system, professionals recommend connected fire alarms and having at least two escape routes out of each room in the home or business to increase the level of protection.
For Bryan Standley, a colleague and friend of Rutter, those requirements should be mandatory.
“I think that’s a reasonable cost to require,” he said. “… you’re looking at cost versus danger.”
A connected smoke alarm system would have helped them in that fire, Standley said of his office peers. “If we had that system with connections and large signals, we could have all been out — it’s sheer luck we didn’t lose all 30 people we had there that day.”
In light of his experience, Standley said Arvada’s commercial and residential structure codes — as they stand now — are not strong enough, leaving safety in the hands of luck.
“And,” he said, “we don’t want to rely on luck.”