Pennsylvania Borough to Send Firefighters Inside for Inspections

Dozens of aging commercial buildings pack Dormont’s West Liberty and Potomac avenue business corridors, while apartment buildings and single-family homes divided into apartments spread out into surrounding neighborhoods.

Borough code enforcement officials get to see only the outside of those properties, but a proposed fire-safety inspection program would let firefighters train to check inside for hazards as well.

“I’d bet you all (our commercial buildings), other than a couple newer buildings, were all built before 1935,” said council President Willard McCartney. “Most on Potomac were probably built in the 1920s.”

Council approved a $45-an-hour contract with Millvale-based Code.sys to update Dormont’s fire code to include a mandatory safety inspection program for apartment buildings with three or more units; civic buildings such as schools; government facilities or churches, and commercial buildings.

Council could vote Aug. 3 on the fire code update and on establishing the inspection program.

Dormont’s four paid firefighters, who drive firefighting equipment and work the police department’s front desk, have been trained as fire-safety inspectors. But they lack real-world experience, and will shadow a Code.sys employee on inspections until the contractors are phased out, McCartney said.

“We have an inspector we’ll assign to Dormont… He’s worked in Oakland so he did a lot of the commercial properties and student housing there,” said Peg Russell, president of Code.sys.

The inspectors will check for working smoke detectors; safe emergency exits; and, in the case of restaurants, properly installed and vented range hoods, Russell said.

“We’ll start with a “Ëœtriage’ of the oldest buildings first,” McCartney said. “After that, everything will be on a three-year cycle,” so buildings get reinspected once every three years.

“It will be a full interior and exterior inspection for fire and safety hazards,” said Deputy Fire Chief Mat Davis, who has been working with Code.sys to set up the program. Firefighters respond to an average of 350 calls a year

The borough’s fire-safety standards will be based on the International Fire Code, a set of model codes from the International Code Council. The fees for inspections will be $75 for commercial properties; $150 for residential buildings with three units plus an additional $50 for each additional apartment; and $300 for schools and churches. The 2015 budget included an anticipated $36,000 in revenue from fire inspection fees.

Code.sys has set up similar programs in Millvale, Etna and Ambridge, Russell said, and while bringing some properties into compliance can be an issue, property owners and landlords eventually view the inspections as a good thing.

“Most landlords and property owners like it because it keeps the properties next to them up to snuff,” Russell said. She said inspections can ensure the borough and its residents know when properties have been broken up into apartments, and help make sure those apartments are safe.

“You’d be surprised what some people try to charge rent for,” she said.

Phil Oakes, national program director and trainer at the National Association of State Fire Marshals, said there are various fire inspection programs around the country, with standards that vary state by state or even town by town.

His agency is in the process of compiling survey results to get a clear picture of what’s done around the country, he said.

Some use firefighters or code enforcement officers to conduct inspections, like Dormont; others just examine fire safety during pre-construction planning and some even allow property owners to conduct the inspections themselves and report to local authorities.

“It’s up to each state, but something is better than nothing,” Oakes said.

Matthew Santoni is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412 380 5625 or msantoni@tribweb.com