Ontario to spend $20M on sprinkler overhaul for small retirement homes
TORONTO — Small retirement homes that can’t afford to install automatic fire sprinklers, mostly in rural Ontario, can now apply for provincial government funding to get the life-saving systems in place before new fire code rules that were prompted by a number of deadly fires go into effect.
The Liberal government pledged $20 million on Wednesday to help small homes with under 49 beds and homes in rural communities overhaul their sprinkler systems before the Jan. 1, 2019 deadline.
In 2014, Ontario became the first province to make sprinkler retrofits mandatory in licensed retirement homes — a move that followed a coroner’s inquest into a fatal 2009 blaze at an Orillia, Ont., retirement home that did not have sprinklers.
The coroner’s report called for retroactive installation of sprinkler systems in vulnerable occupancies like retirement homes. Before that, only facilities built after 1998 were required to have sprinklers.