A fire broke out Saturday evening on the 50th floor of Trump Tower in New York city. The blaze took the life of one man whose apartment became quickly engulfed in flames and injured four fire fighters.
Trump Tower does not have sprinklers on the upper floors.
Trump chose to skimp on installing sprinklers on the higher floors of his building when codes changed requiring sprinkler systems in new residential buildings. The code requires older buildings to be retrofitted if major renovations have been undertaken.
Trump Tower is grandfathered in if no major renovations have been done to the luxury building.
1 Killed in Trump Tower Fire
Fire sprinklers were not required in New York City highrises when Trump Tower was completed in 1983.
Subsequent updates to the building code required commercial skyscrapers to install the sprinklers retroactively, but owners of older residential highrises are not required to install sprinklers unless the building undergoes major renovations.
The 664-foot Trump Tower has 58 stories, though the top floor is numbered 68.
Trump's family has an apartment on the top floors, but he has spent little time in New York since taking office. Nigro said no member of the Trump family was in the building Saturday.
The U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) has promoted research, development, testing and demonstrations of residential fire sprinklers for more than 30 years. The research has indisputably demonstrated that residential fire sprinklers can:
Trump tweeted about the fire Saturday night---to brag about his building. He’s made no mention of the man who perished in the fire in his building or the injured fire fighters.