Changes to city fire code reflect lessons learned at Iconic Village

Nearly nine months after a fire at Iconic Villages Apartments killed five and hurt many more, changes are coming to the San Marcos fire code that will affect commercial properties, including the more than 200 multifamily properties within the city.

At the San Marcos City Council’s work session on Tuesday, Fire Chief Les Stephens and Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner gave a presentation on the amendments, which Stephens described as “housekeeping.” The changes are local amendments to the 2015 International Fire Code. The city adopted the 2015 IFC the year it was issued, but updates are periodically necessary.

“In a book about 2 inches thick, this is probably 30 pages of local amendments,” Stephens said, noting that he and Kistner inherited those amendments from their predecessors. “... We were unsure of the origin and reasoning behind some of those, so we just set about to update those and bring those before you today. They’ll be on the agenda for consideration on the 16th.”

Kistner said the amendments are based on science and technology and were formulated after fire officials met with business owners.

Kistner emphasized that the fire and safety code changes are aimed at commercial occupants, not individual houses.

“We’re not going to be putting any undue or any additional requirements on our homeowners in their private homes,” he said.

Some of the changes to the fire code involve cleaning up the language regarding fire investigations and ensuring that it is consistent with state law.

Kistner and Stephens’ report to the council included an inventory of multifamily properties within the city — a study done after the Iconic Village fire last July. The survey found that there are 286 known multifamily properties, with almost 30,000 beds. Some of the local amendments to the fire code will include bans on grills on multifamily patios, requirements for better gate access for emergency responders at gated properties and a requirement for fire extinguishers in both individual apartments and hallways at multifamily properties. Currently, if a multifamily property has fire extinguishers in every apartment — they are typically kept under the kitchen sink — it is not required to have any in hallways. Information gathered after the Iconic Village fire is behind that change in the code.

“After walking the iconic and interviewing a lot of occupants, many of them grabbed the extinguishers off the wall and attempted to use them,” he said. “None of them grabbed the ones under the sink.”

Other requirements under the new amendments involve fire department connections and Knox boxes — locked boxes on the outside of buildings that contain keys to the building that fire personnel can access so they can enter a building when responding to a call without having to break down a door.

The amendments will have a first reading April 16 with a second reading and vote May 7.