Fire Chief Prenz had a great quote in his White Paper on our West Chester Fire Code, “What is the better service to the community responding to a fire to extinguish it or preventing it from ever happening.”

 It solidified for me the importance of making sure that we have the most up-to-date fire code possible.

 This week Chief Prenz presented the Board of Trustees with a proposal to update the West Chester Fire Code.

 The Ohio Fire Code is required by the Ohio Revised Code 3737.82 (Ohio Revised Code 3737.82) to be “the minimum standards for safeguarding life and property from fire and explosion”

 A bit of history on our code and why we are changing it from Chief Prenz:

In 1985, the Fire Chief, with approval of the Union Township Board of Trustees, formally adopted Resolution 7-85; the 1984 Building Officials & Code Administrators (BOCA) code. This code established minimum requirements to safeguard life, property and public welfare from the devastating effects of fire. Firefighters were trained to conduct Fire and Life Safety inspections. The Township began inspecting every business on an annual basis.

In 2002, West Chester Fire Department felt it was necessary for fire safety to recommend the (IFC) be formally adopted by the West Chester Board of Trustees as the official Township Fire Code. Therefore, in 2002, the West Chester Board of Trustees formally adopted Resolution 32-2002 to make the IFC 2000 our West Chester Fire Code.

Presently, our fire code (IFC 2000) is 19 years old and requires updating. The West Chester Fire Department desires to repeal the existing fire code (IFC 2000) and begin to solely enforce the current editions of the Ohio Fire Code. Falling under the most current edition of the Ohio Fire Code will allow us to remain on the forefront of fire and life safety by enforcing the most current and relevant codes.

Our intent with this resolution is to not only bring us up to date with the most current code cycle, but to allow us to continuously fall under the most current edition of the Ohio Fire Code without a cumbersome formal adoption process. I am confident that the current version and future versions of the Ohio Fire Code are sufficient to keep us on the cutting edge of code enforcement to keep our community safe.