A Carroll County commissioner with decades of firefighting experience testified in Annapolis on Tuesday in support of a Maryland bill that would require the state fire marshal to enforce residential fire sprinkler requirements.
Commissioner Stephen Wantz, R-District 1, who has 30 years of experience as a career firefighter in the state and 44 years as a volunteer firefighter, said Tuesday the Maryland State Firemen’s Association asked if he would speak to the importance of House Bill 823 at a hearing of the House Environment and Transportation Committee, and he did.
The bill seeks to support an existing mandate that requires sprinklers in newly constructed townhouses and one- and two-family homes. The mandate, signed by then-Gov. Martin O’Malley in 2012, lacked an enforcement component, according to Wantz, and this session’s bill intends to remedy that by making it so the Office of the State Fire Marshal enforces sprinkler requirements.