Fire rules few for beach houses

The structures, no matter how big they are, are subject to the same safety requirements as single-family homes

OCEAN ISLE BEACH -- Bigger beach houses all along the North Carolina coast are packing people into places where sprinklers and other fire safety measures are not required, state fire marshals say.

"We have hundreds of these homes identical to the one that burned up in Ocean Isle," said Doug Remaley, fire marshal for Dare County on the Outer Banks. "Is there something we can do about it? No. Because the building code council classifies them as single-family homes. The fire code does not apply."

On Sunday, seven South Carolina college students staying in an Ocean Isle Beach house died when the structure caught fire before 7 a.m. In all, 13 students were staying in the house.

The N.C. Building Code Council writes the rules that govern building construction in the state, using international and national standards and making amendments as it sees fit. It is often criticized as being stacked in favor of the building industry and unwilling to impose rules that would increase building safety when the costs are deemed too high.

That has been the case with fire safety regulations, Remaley said.

Fire safety is addressed in two ways: in the state building code, which dates to the 1930s, and in the fire code, established in response to the Imperial Foods chicken plant fire in Hamlet that killed 25 people in 1991.

The building code, which applies to residential as well as commercial construction, dictates such things as materials, the number of ways into and out of a structure, and the number and placement of smoke detectors.

The fire code applies only to commercial buildings and multifamily housing of three units or more, where it prohibits hazards such as grills on wooden decks and obstructions to common hallways. It does not apply to single-family homes, even those such as a current offering in Corolla, on the Outer Banks, that has nine bedrooms, sleeps 28 and rents for almost $13,000 a week in season.

The house that caught fire Sunday morning had six bedrooms. Authorities have not determined the cause of that blaze, which raced through the two-story house in minutes.

Ocean Isle Beach officials say the blaze was an anomaly. It was the first major structure fire in seven years, said Fire Chief Robert Yoho. He said the house was a private dwelling and not a rental property.

Yoho said the house had smoke alarms, which the state requires, but did not have a sprinkler system, which is not required.

Fire marshals across the country have pushed for sprinklers to be required in residential construction for years, to little avail. The situation in South Carolina is like that in North Carolina. South Carolina law doesn't require single-family homes, including vacation cottages, to contain sprinklers, according to the state fire marshal's office.

Safety can cost

The building industry has said the systems are too costly; safety advocates say the cost is about 1 percent of the cost of a new home, comparable to a carpet upgrade or switching to granite countertops.

To be effective in a house when a fire first starts and is still small, the systems need to spray less than 100 gallons of water per minute. A fire truck responding to an all-out house fire sprays several hundred gallons per minute.

Sprinklers would be especially helpful in the event of a fire in a big beach house, said Matt Davis, president of the N.C. County Fire Marshal's Association and deputy fire chief for New Hanover County, home to Wrightsville Beach.

Such houses most often are built of wood, near to their neighbors in a place where the wind blows almost constantly -- all factors that accelerate the spread of fire. In addition, they're often occupied by renters unfamiliar with their layout and who, when awakened by fire, will be disoriented and less likely to find a way out.

Davis said firefighters responding to a fire in Wrightsville Beach early this past summer discovered that what was on the books as a single-family home -- therefore not subject to fire codes and inspections -- had been subdivided into 12 apartments. The discovery allowed the building's common areas to be inspected for fire hazards and prompted a door-to-door survey still under way to determine how many other structures have been similarly altered.

Ocean Isle Beach residents say their town of about 500 full-time residents is primarily family oriented. There are occasional house parties, but the town typically does not attract crowds of young people.

C.D. Blythe, mayor pro tem, said the town has limits on the density of development and building height that are stricter than those of many towns. He said he didn't know of anything feasible that could be done to prevent fires such as the one that broke out Sunday.

Bo Tate, an Ocean Isle Beach building contractor, said fire-safety measures such as sprinklers would be expensive for homeowners and difficult to install and maintain. "I can't say it wouldn't help," he said, "but is it reasonable?"

Tate said he has helped build at least 100 Ocean Isle Beach homes, but never one with sprinklers. He said he did not include sprinklers in a home he built for himself and his wife, though he knew the hazards. His mother died in a house fire when he was 11.

Sammy Fretwell, a reporter for The (Columbia, S.C.) State, contributed to this report.