To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

GREENSBORO – The Greensboro Fire Department is crediting sprinkler systems with limiting property damage and potentially saving lives in a pair of apartment fires just a week apart.

Officials said such systems are well worth the added expense during construction.

"I was cooking chicken and I went outside for 30 seconds and came back in and there were flames everywhere," said Airreona Jenkins as she stood in the kitchen of her N. Belmont Street apartment. "The smoke detector went off and then like two seconds later, the sprinkler went off."

Jenkins escaped the flames in her second floor apartment Wednesday night.

Damage was confined to the kitchen and assistant fire chief David Douglas says once again a sprinkler system did the job and demonstrated its worth.

"Had this been in a building that did not have a sprinkler system, there's no doubt in my mind that the loss would have been more substantial," said Douglas. "But we probably would have displaced all the occupants of this building instead of just the folks that occupied this one apartment."

In 2002, the state made sprinkler systems mandatory in new multifamily buildings.

New single family homes could be subject to the same code in 2012.

"I feel that that's a necessity because that's where most fire deaths occur, is actually in the home," said Steve Hensley, president of Associated Sprinkler in Greensboro.

Hensley said installing sprinkler systems in new buildings increases the cost of construction by only one to two percent, which is a small price to pay for the protection they provide.

He said retrofitting an existing home or building with a sprinkler system is more expensive, but if you're renovating your home that can be an opportune time to add a system that just might save your life.

"In some cases the sprinkler system has actually extinguished the fire and the firefighters are there to just help you clean up," said Hensley.

There will be some water damage, but Douglas put that into perspective.

"Water damage is much easier to repair or replace than what fire damage is," Douglas said.

Douglas said ultimately the most compelling argument for residential sprinkler systems is that the systems save lives.

"You say, ‘All right, we could cut those deaths by 80 percent every year just by putting in residential fire sprinklers,’ I think we would open some eyes," he said.