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Fire chief urges ordinance requiring working smoke alarms in rental homes after fatality
Summary
Taylorsville-Spencer County Fire Chief Nathan Nation asked the Fiscal Court to consider requiring landlords to provide working smoke alarms in non-apartment rental properties and recommended 10-year sealed alarms; he cited a recent fatal rental fire as context and supplied sample ordinance text and a lease addendum.
Taylorsville-Spencer County Fire Chief Nathan B. Nation asked the Fiscal Court on Jan. 21 to consider a local ordinance requiring landlords to furnish working smoke alarms in single-family rental homes and rental properties that are not regulated as apartment buildings.
Chief Nation told the Court that state fire code requires smoke alarms in apartment buildings but that single-family rental properties are not covered by the same enforcement standard. He cited a recent fatal fire on Bloomfield Road involving a rented single-family property that lacked working smoke alarms and where illegal basement bedrooms had been created without permitting or a second egress.
Nation recommended the county consider requiring 10-year sealed smoke alarms (or 10-year batteries) and provided the Court with a sample ordinance used by the City of Murray and a smoke-detector lease addendum that the department shares with property owners. He noted the fire district operates a free smoke-alarm program for residents in financial need but said landlords should bear primary responsibility for providing working detectors.
Court members did not vote on an ordinance at the Jan. 21 meeting; Chief Nation offered to return and assist if the Court wished to pursue local code changes.
What’s next: The Court may request staff to draft an ordinance or a landlord-tenant lease addendum for further consideration; Chief Nation provided model documents for the Court’s review.
