By DAVID FITZGERALD – Northwest Herald

Last week’s apartment fire in Harvard and another apartment fire in Woodstock last year could have been less severe if the buildings were built today, Woodstock Fire Chief Ralph Webster said.

“Those buildings were built at a time that the codes didn’t require some of the measures we do today,” Webster said this week. “In a building built today, I think it would have been different.”

Combined, the Woodstock fire on St. Johns Road in May 2007 and the Harvard fire displaced more than 63 McHenry County residents in about a year.

“That really reinforces the need for us to protect the residents of those buildings,” Webster said.

The Harvard fire comes just as Crystal Lake and Woodstock are looking to update their fire codes. Both cities already have on the table stricter requirements, including sprinkler systems, for new multi-tenant structures such as apartment buildings.

“A fire starts out small and grows at an exponential rate,” Crystal Lake Fire Chief James Moore said. “Sprinklers give occupants a chance to get out.”

The most recent International Fire Code, which came out in 2006, requires that new apartment buildings be built with sprinklers. Harvard had approved that code, but the older building that burned Tuesday, displacing 27 people, did not fall under the new restriction. One man died of unknown causes at the time of the fire.

Harvard Fire Deputy Chief Alan Styles said his department wanted the best for its residents.

Every home built in Huntley was required to have a sprinkler system for about a year. Village leaders rescinded a part of that ordinance that applied to single-family homes this past September, but it still applies to apartments.

“It’s only a matter of time before people realize that sprinklers are here to stay, just like smoke detectors were years ago,” Huntley Fire Protection District Fire Marshal Ernie Link said.

Towns and fire protection districts update their fire codes every few years, usually strengthening measures each time. But those changes usually apply only to new buildings.

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