Clarendon Hills Fire Department Educates Real Estate Agents

As part of a FEMA grant, officials from Clarendon Hills Fire Department recently hosted area real estate agents at the village’s police station for an educational program about how to sell homes protected by fire sprinklers.

The program, which included a presentation and live fire and sprinkler burn demonstration, is one of a number of similar programs being held throughout Chicagoland and northern Illinois. It helped real estate agents understand how fire sprinklers are an important safety feature of homes by describing how they operate and save lives. It also detailed the insurance benefits for the homeowners and communities that adopt the codes containing home fire sprinklers.

READ: Fire Department Workshop and Burn Demo to Highlight Homes' 'Life-Safety' Features

"Real estate agents are on the front line of education about home fire sprinklers," said Tom Lia, executive director of the nonprofit Northern Illinois Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board (NIFSAB). "They are the voice that homebuyers trust when buying or selling a home, so it’s important that they know the correct facts about fire sprinklers so they can point them out as important fire safety features in homes."

The Clarendon Hills Fire Department chose to host the educational program because of the village’s commitment to the fire and life safety of its residents. In 1999, the village adopted an ordinance requiring fire sprinklers in all new construction one- and two-family homes, making the village the fifth of more than 100 communities in Illinois to have such requirements. Clarendon Hills now has over 600 homes protected with fire sprinklers and approximately 30 to 40 more are being built in 2016.

“We are a very active home market. When residents buy a home, many have no idea how a fire sprinkler system operates, which can be a huge problem," said Lieutenant Dave Godek. "By educating the real estate agents who sell those homes, we are able to give them the information they need to educate the homebuyers."

A fire and sprinkler burn demonstration concluded the program, as real estate agents were able to see the real-time growth of a fire and the effectiveness of fire sprinklers. The two rooms were similarly furnished, however, one room contained a single fire sprinkler and smoke alarm and the other only had a smoke alarm.

The real estate agents felt the extreme heat and saw the quick growth of fire, which quickly melted and silenced the smoke alarm in the unprotected room. They were able to compare it with the quick response and cooling action of the fire sprinkler in the other room.

“The fire department received very positive responses from the real estate agents. Many agents interested in us coming to their offices and educating their full staff,” Lia added. “With a lot of myths out there, such as fire sprinklers all activating at once in a fire, they were pleased to learn the actual facts, so they could do a better job of answering homebuyers’ questions and marketing sprinklered homes in more than 100 Illinois communities with home fire sprinklers.”