Prince George Fire Rescue is welcoming a move to make mandatory fire sprinklers on the balconies of all new wood-frame residential buildings four-storeys and taller .
The measure will come into effect on July 20, the provincial government said Wednesday.
"This is a great thing, for sure," PGFR chief fire prevention officer Marcel Profeit said in an interview. "An unprotected wood balcony is an extremely easy way for a fire to spread floor to floor."
He said a dry-pipe system can be used in cold northern climes to prevent pipes from getting clogged with frozen water and bursting.
"Anything in a subzero environment is a dry-pipe system which basically means there is an air compressor that keeps the pipe pressurized and then the sprinkler head, when it activates due to the heat, the air is released opening the water valve."
Profeit did not have exact numbers but said fires breaking out on balconies have been a problem, to the point where large barbecues were banned from apartment-building balconies when the city's fire protection bylaw was revamped in 2013.
There is at least one local example of the scenario the move is meant to prevent. In April 2014, some 60 people were forced out of the 32-suite Latitude apartment building at 3271 Westwood Dr. after a fire broke out on a balcony. The exact cause of the fire was not determined - candles were being burned and people were smoking - but there was no sprinkler system in place.
The measure, which will come in the form of a change to the B.C. Building Code, comes into effect just as the construction season gets into full swing, Profeit noted. Asked if sprinkler systems should be made mandatory on two and three-storey apartment buildings, Profeit said the smaller structures can be more easily vacated.
"If you've got a fire on the second-floor balcony and you've got a six-storey building, that's a lot of floors that are going to be affected," he said. "Two or three storey, it's a smaller building and it's going to be a costly addition to the construction of the project.
"In a perfect world, it would be nice to have everything done, but I think this is a good starting point as well."
He also said the U.S.-based National Fire Protection Association had launched a campaign to make sprinkler systems mandatory in all new homes. He said the systems are designed to keep fires from spreading and, contrary to popular belief, won't causing extensive flooding.
"When you watch it on TV and someone lights a cigarette or something and the whole sprinkler system goes off and everyone's soaked, that's not reality," Profeit said.
With the change, Profeit said the ban on barbecues will be reconsidered when the bylaw goes through another review.
