Burnsville complex was up to code, even without sprinklers

The lack of sprinkler systems in the Burnsville apartment complex that burned Monday is common in hundreds of apartment buildings across the metro and the state.

"I would say with a fair amount of certainty that there are more [apartment buildings] without sprinklers than there are with," said Jon Nisja, a fire code and data supervisor with the Minnesota State Fire Marshal's office.

The Burnsville structure, built in 1969, was exempted along with other existing multi-family dwellings when a new fire code was adopted in 1989. The code requires new apartment buildings with three or more stories or more than 16 units to have sprinkler systems, Nisja said.

Few states had far-reaching fire codes until the 1970s, when the federal government issued a landmark report strongly urging the adoption of fire and building codes. Until then, only high-risk buildings -- including hospitals, schools and theaters -- were governed by safety codes.

By all accounts, the three-level, 64-unit Burnsville complex, Burncliff Apartments, owned by the Goodman Group, was in compliance with city and state codes. Monday's fire left more than 100 homeless.

The effectiveness of sprinklers in preventing injuries and serious damage from fires was addressed in a 2005 report by the National Fire Protection Association. It concluded that fires in apartment buildings with sprinklers saw 81 percent fewer deaths and nearly half the monetary damages of those without sprinklers. In Minnesota, statistics collected by the state since 2000 are even more dramatic, showing a tenfold difference in deaths by fire between multi-family housing with sprinklers and buildings without them.

However, efforts in Minnesota to retrofit old buildings have stalled due to the high cost.

Gov. Arne Carlson vetoed the proposal in 1995 because legislators hadn't included a plan to finance the work. Nisja estimated that retrofitting all of the state's old apartment buildings with sprinklers could cost billions of dollars.

Since then, there has been little interest in retrofitting apartment buildings of any size, said Chip Halbach, executive director of the Minnesota Housing Partnership.

"It's because the cost would be passed along to tenants," Halbach said. "We already have hundreds and hundreds of tenants in the state paying half of their salary to rent."

About four years ago, leaders at the Minnesota Housing Partnership decided against calling for the retrofitting of older buildings used for public housing.

"It's a tough call for reasons that the Burnsville fire made clear, but it's also hard to keep public housing affordable," Halbach said.

But others have died in fires where a building had alarms but no sprinklers.

In 2000, a 74-year-old woman died in her Hopkins high-rise, which was built before sprinklers were required. The fire started after the woman smoked in her bed.

In 2002, a fire caused $1.2 million in damage and displaced 50 residents at Edina's Wallingford apartments, also built before the 1989 code. The fire chief said a sprinkler system would have likely isolated the blaze to one unit.

Some housing advocates remain convinced that sprinklers are a necessary addition to save lives.

"This is where people live. These are human lives," said Cynthia Finley, director of Damiano's Housing Access in Duluth. "You can't put a price on that."