Rest home fire cause unknown

Press, 25 February 1986, Page 15

Rest home fire cause unknown

PA Auckland The Fire Service has been unable to determine the cause of a fire in a Parnell rest home in which two elderly residents died earlier this month. It will recommend to the Health Department that smoke detectors and sprinklers be made compulsory in all such establishments. The recommendations arose from an investigation by fire safety officers into the St Clare rest home fire. The Director of Fire Safety, Mr Kevin Henderson, said that the St Clare home, like many old people’s homes, lacked smoke detectors and sprinklers. These were not

mandatory under the law covering such homes, he said. The two residents might still have died even if an early-warning system had been installed, he said. But they were an extra precaution which had proved effective in other institutions, such as hospitals, where there were disabled and immobile people. The Fire Service would also ask to become a fire safety consultant for the Health Department when rest homes applied for annual licences, Mr Henderson said. Legally this responsibility lay with the local authority but the Fire Service was keen to assist.