FAULTY FIRE SPRINKLERS HAVE AGENCIES ON ALERT : WHERE TO CALL.

Byline: Eric Wahlgren Daily News Staff Writer

More than 750,000 fire sprinkler heads installed in buildings across Los Angeles are of the same type that repeatedly has failed to function in tests and actual fires, including a recent blaze in West Hollywood, officials said Tuesday.

Responding to concerns, the Los Angeles County Fire Department is planning a sweeping survey of buildings in the more than 50 cities it serves to find out which contain the Omega model in question.

This sprinkler head has a 31 percent failure rate in ongoing Underwriters Laboratories tests and a 35 percent failure rate in tests conducted this year for Virginia's Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.

``Any sprinkler with less than a 100 percent activation rate is cause for concern,'' said Phil Cocker, a county Fire Department captain in charge of codes and ordinances relating to fire safety.

Cocker said that on Jan. 18, an Omega sprinkler head failed to activate in the room where a fire started at a four-story West Hollywood apartment building on North Harper Avenue.

No one was injured, and another sprinkler head of the same model came on in the hallway outside the apartment, but Cocker said the failure of the first sprinkler suggests there could be a widespread problem.

``We probably have hundreds of buildings where this type of sprinkler is installed,'' he said.

In addition to apartments, buildings with the potentially problematic sprinklers could include office complexes, hospitals, hotels and schools, Cocker said.

More than 750,000 of these heads have been installed in buildings across Los Angeles, estimates Ed Sanchez, chief plumbing inspector for the city's Department of Building and Safety, which oversees fire sprinkler installation.

Questions have centered on the model made with a rubber O-ring that forms a watertight seal over the unit's plunger. During a fire, the plunger is supposed to drop when heat melts the solder holding it in place, releasing the water spray.

Sanchez and other officials say this particular Omega model was sleeker and more pleasing to the eye than other sprinklers and was designed to activate more quickly than other heads when it came out about 14 years ago. But tests and other evidence indicate that some sprinklers have failed to spray when the rubber ring expands and grips the plunger too tightly, requiring greater-than-available water pressure for the plunger to drop.

The manufacturer, Lansdale, Pa.-based Central Sprinkler Corp., has maintained that faulty installation is to blame for any failures with this Omega sprinkler head.

Central Sprinkler President George G. Meyer did not return calls for comment Tuesday, but he told the Associated Press the company has no plans to recall the sprinklers, of which 8 million were installed nationwide between 1983 and 1996.

Meyer told the AP the sprinkler head has activated properly in hundreds of fires.

Nevertheless, in June 1996, the company began making this model sprinkler with silicone instead of rubber O-rings. According to the AP, Central Sprinkler also has offered to test the old rubber version of the sprinklers and fix them at the company's expense.

Cocker said the company replaced the sprinkler heads in the West Hollywood complex where the blaze occurred and that the county Fire Department is testing the old heads to determine their failure rates.

The department also is drawing up plans, he said, for a massive survey to determine what buildings have these particular heads, perhaps by conducting on-site inspections and using available building documents.

Cocker said the department is not prepared to recommend across-the-board replacements of the sprinkler heads since the results of its own study of the head's reliability has not been released yet.

``We need to assess what kind of results we are having here and not say `The sky is falling' at the moment,'' he said.

But fire officials in Fairfax County have taken more drastic measures with an order June 30 to all building owners to test or replace what will perhaps amount to thousands of the sprinkler heads.

After an Omega head failed to function when a fire broke out in a Marriott Courtyard hotel room in Michigan in May 1995, Marriott International Inc. replaced heads in hundreds of hotels across the country, a spokesman said.

``Based upon our reputation for safety, we just made a decision across the board that we would change them all,'' said Marriott's Roger Conner, based in Washington, D.C.

But Conner said he did not know whether the company's hotels in the Los Angeles area had undergone sprinkler replacements and whether Central Sprinkler had covered the cost of the work.

Ronny Coleman, the state's fire marshal, said his office is on the verge of mailing a second bulletin to California's more than 950 fire agencies alerting them to the Omega sprinkler head issue.

``We are telling local fire departments to be as proactive as they believe is appropriate,'' Coleman said.

A Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said no failures of Omega sprinkler heads have been reported in city fires and that the department is awaiting more definite word on the source of the problems before contemplating further action.

``At this point, we are not really clear as to what the problem really is,'' said Jimmy Hill, the city's fire marshal.

Hill suggested that building owners who are concerned that their properties may be equipped with Omega heads contact a special hotline the department has set up to answer questions about potential testing or replacement.

The Los Angeles Fire Department has set up a hotline for building owners if they have concerns about the Omega fire sprinkler head. Callers are asked to leave their name, address and phone number at [phone] and a fire official will return the call. Property owners outside the city should call the fire department that serves their area.

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