In the wake of a fire in a downtown Silver Spring apartment building that killed a young woman, a state delegate that represents Silver Spring and Takoma Park is taking the lead in drafting legislation to create more fire safety measures in apartment buildings statewide.
Del. Lorig Charkoudian (D-Dist. 20) said in an interview with MoCo360 she hopes to have legislation drafted “as soon as possible.” WJLA first reported the news about Charkoudian’s bill.
The delegate said Monday that she aims to put into state law a provision that’s already in the state’s fire code—that all older buildings should be retrofitted with sprinkler heads by Jan. 1, 2033.
Earlier this month, a fire at the Arrive apartment complex in Silver Spring displaced hundreds of residents and killed 25-year-old Melanie Diaz. According to multiple news reports, Maryland’s state fire marshal said the fire could have been prevented from spreading if sprinklers were installed throughout the building.
Charkoudian said the sprinkler requirement in state law by 2033 is important, but that her legislation also aims to implement multiple other fire safety measures in the years before then, including:
- Signage in apartment building lobbies indicate that an apartment building doesn’t have sprinklers
- Apartment leases indicating that buildings higher than 75 feet should have sprinklers, and tenants need to initial that they understand if they don’t
- A requirement that there are fire extinguishers in each apartment unit until sprinklers are installed
- A requirement that smoke alarms be installed in hallways in high-rise apartment and condo buildings
- A directive that the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, the state’s fire marshal and Maryland Department of Emergency Management identify federal and state funds to put in sprinklers before 2028
“The mitigating pieces in the bill are as important as the [2023 sprinkler] deadline in the bill,” Charkoudian said.
Multiple news outlets have reported that there are still dozens of high-rise apartment and condo buildings in Montgomery County that don’t have sprinkler heads in every unit. State law and local regulations state that if a building was built prior to 1974, sprinklers were not required in every unit.
“I don’t know how we’re in 2023 without having set a deadline in state law … I don’t know how we’re in 2023, and we don’t require smoke alarms in state law in hallways, I don’t know how we’re in 2033 and we don’t have mitigation requirements like the fire extinguishers in every single unit,” Charkoudian said. “It’s concerning to me. But I do know … we’re in the middle of session, and my goal is to get as much safety into law as quickly as I can this session.”
Charkoudian added that she would be focused on the issue in the coming years, including on identifying potential funding from state and federal coffers in order to install sprinklers and other safety measures before the 2033 deadline.
Charkoudian missed the filing deadline for House bills, which was Feb. 10. That doesn’t mean a bill has no chance of passing through the House of Delegates and state Senate, but it faces more procedural hurdles. The fire at the Arrive apartment complex occurred Feb. 18.
The final day of session is scheduled for April 10.