Sprinklers Saves Seniors Lives 100% 1.92

Residents of many seniors homes in Ontario would die if a fire broke out because their buildings are short-staffed and lack sprinkler systems, according to a preliminary study by top provincial fire chiefs.

Roughly 24 retirement and nursing homes in 10 cities — including London, Kitchener, Niagara Falls and Huntsville — have been tested in mock evacuations and most failed, said Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs spokesperson Jim Jessop. Toronto is planning similar tests.

“We have a legal and moral responsibility to make sure the residents are safe,” said Jessop, who provided the early test results to the Star.

Ontario fire chiefs are frustrated with the province’s refusal to force homes to install sprinklers that would protect the elderly. The fire chiefs say their study is the latest effort in a long campaign to convince Queen’s Park.

The fire chiefs have researched the issue and found that Ontario seniors homes have the worst fire fatality record in North America with 45 deaths since 1980.Four private members’ bills and three inquests have all recommended sprinklers. A fourth inquest into a deadly 2009 fire at an Orillia retirement home will begin on April 16. The fire killed Vera Blain, Genneth Dyment, Hugh Fleming and Robert McLean.

Residences built after 1998 must have sprinklers but the devices are still not required in 4,000 older “care occupancies,” which house more than 200,000 seniors and other vulnerable people across Ontario including the intellectually challenged. The frail, elderly are more likely to die in fires than any other age group, experts say.

The fire chiefs have lobbied rigorously for sprinklers but Madeleine Meilleur, Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, holds a different view.

Meilleur told the Star it is fire prevention and properly trained employees — not sprinklers — that are the most effective safeguards.