Habitat for Humanity Home:

Colleagues,

     At the last general membership meeting, I was asked to give an ‘impromptu’  update to the IFPF membership about the progress of the Habitat for Humanity home fire sprinkler project.   I failed to make mention of the most important point that I wanted to bring up, and that was I wanted to explain to the membership of how this project was conceived.

     This last summer, Deputy Fire Chief/Fire Marshal Andy Cater of the Caldwell Fire Department started up a ‘grass roots’ coalition effort to bring about awareness, education, and the promotion of one and two family NFPA 13D fire sprinklers here in Idaho, specifically Canyon County.  Andy has paired up with the regional NFPA representatives to use their “Faces of Fire” campaign and had invited, AHJ’s, elected officials,  fire alarm and fire sprinkler vendors, water purveyors, the BCA and other home builders, and other industry professionals, to attend bi-monthly meetings to brainstorm ideas of how we can collectively achieve that goal.

One of the ideas that was ‘brainstormed’ was getting involved with the Nampa School District Construction Management program which was building a home for a family where the father is a disabled adult.  It was just an obvious fit that this would be a great opportunity and perfect circumstance to install the NFPA 13D fire sprinklers in this home and at the same time, educate our youth on what fire sprinklers are and the life safety benefits that can be added to home construction.

Anyway, I just wanted to make sure that Chief Cater got his due credit for his noteworthy efforts in bringing about this coalition, which in turn brought about the Habitat for Humanity home fire sprinkler project.