(Background Information)
Mobile/Manufactured Home Park Fire Hydrant Safety
Working Notes:
Written by John Sisker,
Founding Director of the Manufactured Home Owners Network www.mfghomeowners.net
This is a continued report regarding Mobilehome Park Fire Hydrant
Safety. Here, my working notes are direct from the Hearing itself
on this very subject by former California Senator Dunn. I start
off by listing the key players and registered speakers. In addition,
the room was filled to capacity with other interested individuals.
This Hearing came about because of the mobile home fire on December
19th, in Compton (California), that killed 3 people. Apparently,
when the fire department hooked up to the park hydrants, they
found they had never been connected to the main water supply.
...updated and additional data may now be available...
California
State Authorities:
* Senator Joseph Dunn, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee
on Mobile & Manufactured Homes (former)
* John Tennyson, Primary Consultant to the Senate Select Committee
on Mobile & Manufactured Homes (at the time)
* Richard Alarcon, Senator
* Allen Lowenthal, Assemblyman
* Assembly-Member Correa's office (representative)
Mobile/Manufactured
Home Owners and Representatives:
* Sister Maribeth Larkin, Our Lady of Victory Church, Compton
* Olivia Cruz, El Rancho Mobile/Manufactured Home Park, Compton
* Carman Camacho, El Rancho Mobile/Manufactured Home Park, Compton
* Harold Shone, Stanton
* Leonard Williams, Stanton
* Ken Benedict, Anaheim
* John Sisker, Founding Director, Manufactured Home Owners Network
(MHON)
* Steve Gullage, GSMOL President
* Maurice Priest, GSMOL's Attorney/Advocate
* Mary Ann Stein, CMRAA Vice President
President
Park Owners and Representatives:
* Rosario Ragazzo, General Manager, El Rancho Mobile/Manufactured
Home Park
* Mike Cirillo, President, WMA
* Norm McAdoo, Park Owner
* Terry Dowdall, Attorney
Local
Agency Representatives:
* James Murphy, Battalion Fire Chief, City of Garden Grove
* Jerry Halberstadt, Fire Marshal, City of Garden Grove
* Steve Patterson, President, California Building Officials
Association
* Fire Chief Tom Groseclose, City of Orange
* Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Macintosh, Orange County Fire
Authority
State
Agency Representatives:
* Jack Kerin, Department of Housing & Community Development
(HCD), Codes and Standards, Sacramento
* Sal Poidomani, HCD Riverside Office
* Steve Viero, State Fire Marshal's Office
Note: This was the 6th Hearing
presented by Senator Dunn, of the 34th Senatorial District,
regarding mobile/manufactured home issues.
Some of the facts and issues
presented by the mobile/manufactured home owners and their representatives
were:
* Parks with no fire hydrants, or even extinguishers, in public
areas or elsewhere.
* Parks with inadequate water pressure for the existing fire
hydrants.
* Parks that have hydrants, but do not work.
* Hydrants overgrown with bushes and/or not maintained or even
tested.
* Residents expressed concern with the park manager's involvement
in determining the degree of compliance in regards to fire safety.
They want qualified professions only, not an unqualified manager.
* Narrow streets and inadequate turning radius for fire equipment
of major concern.
* All residents live with a daily threat of their health and
safety by not having adequate fire suppression measurers within
the park.
* Some parks only have one entrance/exit to the entire park,
thus making conditions even worse.
* Many older parks have outdated water mains.
* Poor or no inspection programs at all in parks for fire hydrants.
* Park residents also are well aware, if the park owners are
required to upgrade the park in any way in regards to fire hydrants
and/or fire extinguishers, all the costs will simply be passed
in to the residents in the form of higher rents or so-called
pass-throughs.
* Park owners are always informed of pending city/state inspections,
where the residents are usually not. Therefore, they have time
to prepare or make necessary modifications - to at least pass
select inspections or to make operable for the time being.
* This hydrant issue could possibly be considered a failure
to maintain the park as a safe environment - in violation of
the Mobilehome Residency Law.
* Residents know it will take some type of legislation to make
the park owners take any action and also to make them legally
responsible.
* The residents collectively feel the mobile/manufactured home
owners should not be responsible for the park owner's lack of
upgrades, failure to maintain, "fake" hydrants, etc.
Park
Owners and Their Representatives Claim:
* Many of the older mobile homes are actually the problem -
should be forced to upgrade upon sale or transfer of title.
* Dry wall is better then wood paneling and acts as a fire retardant.
Newer homes are the answer.
* Trash and rubbish in or around the home, overloading circuits,
aluminum wiring, are the causes of these fires.
* Claims that fires in a mobile home are actually self-contained
- does not spread.
* They also claim a mobile home fire can be handled by the fire
engine (pumper) and by simply wetting down the surrounding homes.
* Feels the primary cause of fires is not from the lack of or
inadequate hydrants, but from the home itself, which they feel
is the responsibility of the homeowners.
* Also feels a contributing factor are homes with no (working)
smoke alarms and/or no required sprinkler standards for new
mobilehomes.
* Park owners/representatives feel the solution is not hydrants,
but to have all mobile home equipped with smoke detectors and/or
fire extinguishers.
* Wants the cities to front all costs if required to upgrade
the park, or their outlay will be passed on to the residents.
* Park owners feel that preventive measures are the responsibility
of the homeowner and that the homeowner needs to upgrade their
home instead of the park upgrading the infrastructure. (Note:
The park owners said nothing about the old wiring of the infrastructures
to the home itself. If indeed the home is old enough to stand
upgrading, then in all likelihood, so would the underground
wiring to this home, which is a park owner responsibility. Conditions
can't be any safer than the lowest standards).
* To retrofit parks with hydrants, park owner's claim it really
is a legal issue - indicating such solutions will be fought
out in court.
* The park owners and their representatives feel that all-new
manufactured homes to be equipped with sprinklers.
Local
& State Agency (Fire) Representatives:
* Pointed out that mobile home builds prior to 1976 will burn
in 4 to 7 minutes, 15 minutes for newer manufactured home with
updated standards.
* Almost every mobile home with a fire is a total loss.
* Contributing factors: inadequate water supply, distance to
travel between hydrants, age of park, space between homes, width
of streets, condition and age of home, even the age of the resident(s).
* They pointed out that "quality of life" is becoming the California
dream and manufactured homes play a large part in this dream.
* Many of these hydrants within mobile/manufactured home parks
are privately owned and are the responsibility of the park owners,
not the fire authorities.
* The "Fire" authorities pointed out the same items of concerns
as the residents brought to Senator Dunn's attention: no hydrants
or insufficient number of them, no water pressure, could run
out of water, "key" not operative, no fire hydrant inspections,
or hydrants not hooked up at all.
* The bottom line as emphasized by the "Fire" authorities is,
"We are dealing with lives here."
* If costs are the responsibility of park owners, we know that
will simply be passed on to the residents in one form or another.
* In parks build prior to 1968, hydrants were not require at
all.
* In reference to the required state park inspection program,
for future inspections, it will only entail those parks that
had a lot of violations during the previous inspection.
* They pointed out a Fire (pumper) Engine only hold 500 gallons,
which is good for 4-minutes - tops!
* Current laws also prohibit enforcing the retrofitting of hydrants
in existing mobile/manufactured home parks.
* HCD (Housing & Community Development) emphasized that
local authorities are usually more in tune with proper park
inspections than the state is, especially in regards to fire
safety, even though most cities turned such mobile/manufactured
home park inspection programs back to the state.
* For fire inspections in parks built prior to 1971, mobile
homes were not required to have smoke alarms. The standards
were upgraded in 1976 and then again in 1995. Prior to 1968,
nothing was required within the home or park.
* Parks build after 1968, even with the HCD requirements to
inspect parks, was not done in regards to fire hydrants safety.
This is resource issue and relies on local fire authorities
that were not mandated or even funded to do so.
Possible
Solutions and Recommendations:
* Update the 1977 NFPA (National Fire Protection Act) Regulations.
* Increase the standards for Fire Hydrant Safety in mobile/manufactured
home parks.
* Enact emergency legislation.
* Source of funding possibly from the state surplus.
* Appoint a special Task Force that includes the Fire Marshal.
* Enact a mandate to have the local fire authorities inspect
the parks for fire hydrant safety on a yearly basis.
* Continuing education programs for park owners and residents
as well.
* Install blue reflectors marking hydrants within the parks.
* Title 25 of the National Standards does not address the issue
directly. Still using the 1977 Standards for Mobile Home Park
fire safety. Needs to be updated to at least the 1995 Standards.
* For fire protection issues, the Fire authorities feel it should
be taken out of Title 25 and put in Title 19 where it really
belongs, for the real problem is with the fire safety codes.
* As an example, apartments are required to be inspected once
a year, where mobile home parks are not.
* Title 19 would require once a year inspections, which is not
done now. Current codes now require a fire hydrant to be every
500 feet from each other.
* There is a need to promote, maintain, and enhance affordable
housing in this state, which manufactured housing can help fill.
However, there is also a need to provide adequate fire and safety
protection within these manufactured housing communities.
* There is a real need for special funding to retrofit the parks
without hydrants and/or with inadequate water supply and/or
pressure.
* Refer to Code 24 in reference to fire hydrant standards, Part
9 and any local amendments. Section 109 refers to mobile/manufactured
home parks.
In
conclusion and from my personal observation, it appears once
again the park owners and their representatives are seemingly
trying to shift the real issue of fire safety in their parks,
and to put the burden of responsibility back on the home owners
themselves. However in all practical purposes, at least to me,
the apparent cause of a fire is not the real issue here, but
how to fight it effectively once a fire breaks out, and also
to keep it from spreading. It seems quite obvious that any updated
standards put on the park owners in regards to fire hydrant
safety, will simply be passed on to the residents. Therefore,
it does seem that such solutions will not come out of concerns
of safety by some of these park owners, but will have to be
mandated by the state and local fire authorities, with the costs
paid for from other sources of funding.
Disclosure...
