If Honolulu is to require owners to install fire sprinklers in all pre-1975 residential buildings, it will involve heavy lifting to persuade the state Legislature to update the state’s fire code, according to a retired Honolulu fire official.
Richard Soo worked 27 years with the Honolulu Fire Department, including as its first full-time spokesman, before retiring as a fire captain in 2002. During his career, Honolulu’s mayors and City Council members supported amending the state fire code to mandate that all high-rises built before 1975 have fire-sprinkler systems, he said.
“My understanding is it was always positive, no matter what the cost was,” Soo said Saturday.
However, the proposal died each time it reached the Legislature, where lawmakers were swayed by building-industry lobbyists and deleted the updated state fire-code language on sprinklers, Soo said.
“The building officials, the contractors … they lobby intensely,” he said.
Fire officials say the five-alarm fire that destroyed at least a dozen units on three floors and left three people dead Friday at the Marco Polo condominium could have been contained if the building had fire sprinklers, but such systems weren’t mandated in Honolulu condominiums until 1975.
In 2005, roughly 300 residential buildings in Honolulu were found to not have sprinkler systems.
In 2000, Soo was HFD’s public-information officer during the six-alarm fire that destroyed the top floor of the Interstate Building, a pre-1975 commercial building on 1333 S. King St. that also didn’t have fire sprinklers. Two HFD captains, Guy Katayama and Jeff Young, nearly died fighting that blaze, and it shuttered the building for a year as crews worked to fix the water damage, Soo said Saturday.
He marveled that the Marco Polo residences had not installed fire sprinklers despite a Jan. 15, 2013, three-alarm blaze there that caused $1.1 million in damage to two apartments.
“I just hope that time has come where these fatalities mandate the code changes and our government officials wake up and change it,” Soo said. “Now’s the time. Don’t allow lobbyists to change your mind.”
An HFD spokesman did not respond to requests for comment Saturday.
Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporters Andrew Gomes and Michael Tsai contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of this story said a spokeswoman did not respond for comment. An HFD spokesman did not respond for comment.
