NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 74

HOME FIRE SPRINKLERS
HOME SAFE HOME

Setting an Example

Ernest Mitchell, right, being sworn
in as U.S. Fire Administrator by
FEMA chief Craig Fugate in 2011.

W

hen the Federal Emergency
Management Agency
(FEMA) began making
safety changes to its emergency
housing units around 2008, initial
suggestions from one of its divisions,
the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA),
to include residential sprinklers were
dismissed as too big a political risk in
the aftermath of Katrina. The issue
was all but forgotten until longtime
sprinkler advocate Ernest Mitchell
was appointed U.S. Fire Administrator in 2011 and fervently took on the
cause. Safety for disaster victims
was the key reason for his crusade,
Mitchell said, but there were other
motives as well.
"I thought it would benefit the
nation's fire safety if the federal government demonstrated leadership
and set the example" on sprinklers,
Mitchell said in a recent interview
with NFPA Journal. "I've found over
time that a lot of people just aren't
aware of residential sprinklers-in
fact, there were staff at FEMA at the
time who came up to me and said,
'I didn't know you could put these in
your home.' But installing sprinklers

in every home would have the biggest impact on reducing fire death
in this country. I know it's not going
to happen overnight, but we need to
start somewhere. I felt if we could
start it on a federal level, others
might adopt it."
Mitchell took every opportunity
to talk to agency leaders, including Craig Fugate, then FEMA's
administrator, about the need for
home fire sprinklers. He emphasized
how modern homes and furnishings
are more combustible and lead
to faster flashover times, giving
occupants mere minutes to escape.
In meetings, he presented NFPA
statistics on how sprinklers increase
survival rates, and educated FEMA
staff on how residential sprinklers
work, as well as existing NFPA codes
and standards. He collected and
spoke about FEMA's lackluster fire
statistics in its housing units-by
FEMA's count, from 2005 to 2009,
186 fires occurred in FEMA-deployed
emergency housing units, resulting
in 14 deaths and 18 injuries.
It was a slow process. With the
Katrina lawsuits still fresh, FEMA's

74 | NFPA JOURNAL * N O V E M B E R / D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 7

lawyers were reticent to make
significant alterations to the new
iteration of emergency housing
stock, Mitchell said. In designing the
manufactured home units, FEMA
had strictly followed housing codes
for manufactured homes developed
by the U.S. Department of Housing
and Urban Development (HUD),
which permitted but did not require
residential sprinklers.
"My perception was FEMA felt
that if it provided units exactly to
the HUD standard, it would take
away its liability for how they were
built," Mitchell said. "If there were
some issue with the manufactured
housing, FEMA did not want to
be seen as the regulator of safety
standards for those units, and they
did not want to be tied to it." Those
concerns stalled the sprinkler effort
for years. Lawrence McKenna, an
engineer with USFA, agreed with
Mitchell's assessment about FEMA's
initial caution around fire sprinklers.
"Anything away from HUD code
was deemed a huge risk for (FEMA)
politically," he said. "It took several
years of Ernie working with Craig

to build trust, extolling the virtues
of sprinklers, the fire hazards, and
potential to get Craig to issue a
directive that we do this."
But by 2014, the path forward
began to clear. A new FEMA
general counsel without the scars
of Katrina was appointed, and
Fugate began actively pushing the
agency post-Katrina to adopt a
more responsive, survivor-centric
approach. "Craig wanted the agency
to focus on what can we do to best
assist and comfort the survivors,
and the sprinkler issue certainly fit
with that," Mitchell said.
By then, Mitchell had been fire
administrator long enough to gain
the trust of FEMA's senior staff
and was making inroads with his
message. One day in early 2015,
Fugate, a former firefighter, looked
at Mitchell and declared his support
for finding a way to install sprinkler
systems in FEMA's emergency housing units. He formed a committee
comprised of various groups-
lawyers, engineers, code officials,
the acquisition department, and
others-to iron out logistics and
build broad support for the idea
within the agency.
As presidential appointees, both
Mitchell and Fugate worked with
purpose, knowing their time in
government would likely end after
the 2016 election. Over countless meetings through 2014, the
disparate parties signed off on a
plan to install sprinklers in FEMA
emergency housing.
"Even with a directive from the
top, changing the status quo in
the federal government is a slow
process-people always have something else to do," Mitchell explained.
"Once you get them to think it's a
good idea, then you have get them
motivated to take action instead
of pushing it off to do other things.
You've got to get it to the top of the
pile of 10,000 other things people
are working on." -J.R.

U.S. FIRE ADMINISTRATION

HOW ERNEST MITCHELL, FORMER U.S. FIRE ADMINISTRATOR,
CONVINCED FEMA TO INCLUDE HOME FIRE SPRINKLERS IN ITS EMERGENCY HOUSING



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - November/December 2017

Contents
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 1
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - Contents
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 3
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 4
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 5
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 6
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 7
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 8
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NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 111
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - 112
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - Cover3
NFPA Journal - November/December 2017 - Cover4
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