On Monday, Montgomery County Commissioners Court restored its 2008 fire codes, but will allow the county fire marshal to grant extensions to daycare owners to install new fire alarm systems.

The Montgomery County Fire Marshal’s Office has given daycare owners a year from their annual inspection to comply with new state life safety codes, which require fire alarm systems to be linked in all daycare centers and provide monitoring and sprinkler systems for centers with more than 100 children.

The county fire marshal is responsible for annual inspection for state licensing at 100 daycare centers in the county.

Small daycare owners said the expense may drive them out business or force them to raise their rates, which may increase the number of latch key kids in the county.

“This is the state law, but we didn’t have to adopt that fire code,” said Becky Williams of Kiddie Cabin Day Care, who said it will cost $6,000 to equip her facility with the new system. “We have other counties that do not even have these codes.”

Montgomery County Fire Marshal Jimmy Williams said the state adopted the new standards because of improvements to technology that could better protect the public. He said research has shown that traditional single smoke alarms fail to work 30 percent of the time.

“Some of these day care centers have 200 children,” Jimmy Williams said. “Do you want to protect them with a single station fire alarm system that fails 30 percent of the time?”

Jimmy Williams said the county is trying to prevent a large-scale disaster, such as the 44 children who perished last year in a Mexico daycare fire. He said there have been small fires in Montgomery County daycare centers, but nothing of significance. He said the daycare centers have the same requirements as public schools in the county.

Becky Williams said that daycare centers already are required to have working smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, monthly fire drills and biannual weather drills.

“They say that they are doing this for the safety of the children,” said Becky Williams. “Like we are not for the safety of children? Yes we are.”

Jimmy Williams said the state Department of Family and Protective Services, which requires an annual inspection for daycare licenses, does allow daycare owners to apply for a three year waiver for economic hardship, but it rarely allows them.

Jimmy Williams said he believes a year is a reasonable amount of time for daycare centers to comply. Beyond that, the county and its fire marshal open themselves up for additional liability issues in the event of an injury or death.

“They’re not wanting to put child safety out there,” said Commissioner Ed Rinehart of Precinct 4 in East County. “They’re concern is that daycare centers will go out of business. Some daycare centers are overloaded, and there’s no where for these kids to go.”

The county suspended its 2008 fire codes after the daycare owners brought their complaints to Commissioner Court last month, but they restored the standards Monday. Montgomery County Judge Alan B. Sadler said that the county will stick by its fire codes, which follow the state standards.

“This court has elected to adopt the fire code,” Sadler said. “We’ve agreed to the life safety code as part of the state standard.”

State Life Safety Code Changes

The Montgomery County Fire Marshal’s Office is responsible for conducting Life Safety Inspections of existing daycare homes as part of the state licensing process. These inspections are conducted utilizing the 2006 National Fire Protection Association Life Safety Code. The 2006 Life Safety Code was recently adopted by the State of Texas, and the requirements for existing daycares can be found in Chapter 17.
Among the requirements for commercial daycare centers, those caring for more than 13 children are:
• Centers be provided with a fire alarm system with manual activation
• Includes a pull station on each floor near the exits
• Includes horn and strobe device in each room
• Those will more than 100 children must include a monitoring system by local fire department.
Source: Montgomery County Fire Marshal’s Office