Terin Hopkins, NFSA Manager of Public Fire Protection

Heavy smoke billowing from the upper floors of a residential high-rise. Firefighters climbing stairwells while rescue crews search smoke-filled hallways for trapped occupants. Residents leaning from windows awaiting rescue. Multiple alarms. Hours of firefighting operations. Families displaced. Lives forever changed.

This week, another city joined a growing list of communities forced to confront the devastating consequences of a fire in an existing unsprinklered residential high-rise.

Just after 2:00 a.m., firefighters in Washington, D.C., responded to a fire in a 10-story apartment building on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SW. Upon arrival, crews encountered heavy fire conditions on the eighth floor with smoke spreading throughout the building. The incident quickly escalated to a two-alarm fire as firefighters searched for occupants, rescued residents, and worked to contain the blaze before it spread further.

One resident lost their life. Three civilians and one firefighter were injured. Numerous families were displaced, and portions of the building sustained significant fire, smoke, and water damage.

Unfortunately, this incident is not unusual.

In fact, it has become all too common.

The Washington fire occurred during the same week as several other major residential high-rise fires around the world. In Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood, a rapidly developing apartment fire injured multiple residents and forced one occupant to jump from a fifth-floor window to escape. In Antwerp, Belgium, a devastating apartment building fire claimed five lives and injured numerous others after smoke rapidly filled the building. In India, another residential building fire made national headlines after claiming multiple lives and injuring additional occupants.

Different countries. Different building codes. Different fire departments.

The outcome, however, was strikingly similar.

Large fires.

Heavy smoke.

Multiple rescues.

Extensive property damage.

Injuries.

Fatalities.

While every fire has its own unique circumstances, these incidents share one common characteristic that should not be ignored: they occurred in buildings where the fire was not immediately controlled by automatic fire sprinklers.

That distinction matters.

When significant fires occur in older unsprinklered high-rise residential buildings, they often become major emergencies before firefighters even arrive. Modern furnishings can reach flashover in just a few minutes, producing enormous quantities of heat, smoke, and toxic gases. By the time fire companies climb multiple flights of stairs carrying hose, tools, and lifesaving equipment, the fire has often spread beyond the apartment of origin, threatening adjacent units, filling corridors with smoke, and placing hundreds of occupants at risk.

These are the fires that become multiple-alarm incidents.

These are the fires that dominate the evening news.

These are the fires that require dramatic rescues from windows and balconies.

These are the fires that leave entire buildings uninhabitable.

Contrast that with fires in fully sprinklered high-rise buildings.

Those fires occur every day, yet most people never hear about them.

Why?

Because the overwhelming majority are controlled by one or two sprinklers before they can grow into catastrophic events. Occupants safely evacuate, firefighters complete extinguishment and overhaul, and residents often return to their homes the same day. The incident rarely attracts media attention because there is little dramatic footage to broadcast.

The absence of headlines is, in many ways, the greatest testament to the effectiveness of automatic fire sprinklers.

National fire data reinforces what firefighters have observed for decades. Buildings protected by automatic sprinkler systems experience dramatically fewer civilian deaths and injuries. Fire spread beyond the room of origin is uncommon, and property damage is significantly reduced. According to national fire statistics, automatic sprinklers reduce civilian fire deaths by approximately 84 percent and civilian injuries by 85 percent. More than 90 percent of fires in sprinklered buildings are contained before extending beyond the room or object of origin.

Those numbers are not abstract statistics.

They represent lives saved, families kept in their homes, firefighters who return safely to their stations, and communities spared the devastating financial and emotional costs of a major fire.

Yet despite decades of evidence, unsprinklered residential high-rise buildings continue to experience the same devastating outcomes.

After every major fire, familiar questions emerge.

Why wasn’t the building sprinklered?

Could this tragedy have been prevented?

Why do these fires continue to happen?

The answers are neither new nor complicated.

Many of these buildings were constructed before automatic sprinkler protection became commonplace. They remain occupied by hundreds of thousands of residents, including older adults, individuals with disabilities, working families, and those living in affordable housing. These buildings continue to present a known and measurable life safety hazard.

The fire service has long understood that there is no practical firefighting strategy that can match the effectiveness of automatic sprinkler protection. Firefighters perform extraordinary work under incredibly dangerous conditions, but they will always arrive after the fire has already begun. Sprinklers begin working immediately, often within the first moments of fire growth, keeping conditions survivable until firefighters arrive.

That early intervention changes everything.

It changes the size of the fire.

It changes the amount of smoke.

It changes the number of rescues.

It changes the extent of property damage.

Most importantly, it changes whether people survive.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of these recurring tragedies is how easily they have become accepted.

A fatal fire in an unsprinklered high-rise is reported, investigated, and discussed for a few days before public attention shifts elsewhere. Communities express sympathy for the victims, praise the heroic actions of firefighters, and begin repairing the damaged building. Then another fire occurs somewhere else, and the cycle repeats.

What has become normalized is not simply the occurrence of these fires, but the expectation that they will continue.

We should not accept multiple-alarm high-rise fires, extensive smoke damage, displaced families, and firefighter injuries as unavoidable consequences of living in older residential buildings. Nor should another fatal fire be required before meaningful discussions about sprinkler retrofits begin.

The tragedies this week in Washington, Chicago, Belgium, and India are reminders that this is not a local issue. It is a global fire and life safety challenge affecting cities large and small, regardless of geography or building design.

The technology to prevent these disasters has existed for decades.

The data proving its effectiveness is overwhelming.

The fire service understands the solution.

The question is no longer whether automatic sprinkler retrofits save lives.

The question is how many more communities must experience another week like this before we stop treating these tragedies as inevitable and begin treating them as preventable.

Terin Hopkins has 40 years of experience in public safety, fire protection, and life safety policy. He currently serves as the Manager of Public Fire Protection for the National Fire Sprinkler Association (NFSA), where he leads technical support and advocacy efforts nationwide, working closely with fire departments, code and standard, and policymakers to improve fire protection infrastructure and compliance. He represents NFSA on NFPA and UL technical committees, including NFPA 14 Standard for the Installation of Standpipe and Hose Systems.