7News on your side examines the progress of fire protection after the fire in the apartment of Montgomery Co.

Montgomery County, Md. (7news) – Siren and lights from Firetrucks have become too four fires for the residents of the Enclave Apartments in Silver Spring, Md.

The recent fire only occurred a few days ago and sent a victim to the hospital with non -life -threatening injuries and repressed nine residents.

A fire in the same apartment complex in 2023 required firefighters to save two people with life -threatening injuries. In 2024, two fires broke within just 24 hours.

Reuben Harlequin, who has lived in enclave for about two years, said to 7news, he didn't even blink when he sees first aiders in his house.

“I always see the trucks and see the ambulances,” said Harlekin. “Last time I saw rubble outside for a good two weeks.”

However, what triggers alarms is the revelation of Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service officials that Enclave has no sprinklers in every unit.

Since the apartment was built in front of the current fire code, Enclave has until January 1, 2033 to retrofit and add the necessary sprinklers.

Harlekin said he was not aware of this.

“You don't really tell you everything. I think you can do a better job and let us know whether there is a deficiency in this area,” said Harlequin.

These fires may remind you of the fatal fire, which just happened down the road a little more than two years ago.

In February 2023, a fire broke through the arrival apartments in Silver Spring and killed the Melanie Diaz.

This apartment complex has no sprinklers in every unit that state fire service officers had given since then, Diaz 'life would have saved.

Since then, her family has made constant trips to Annapolis to adopt the legislators of the state legislators in order to adopt laws to improve fire security.

During the legislative period in 2024, the legislators – and governor Wes Moore, passed the law on Melanie Nicholle Diaz's law, which resulted in the requirements for high -rise buildings without sprinklers in every unit.

These requirements include smoke detectors in every unit, emergency escape lighting, building evacuation plans and indications in Lobbies and leasing contracts that the apartment or apartment is not equipped with sprinklers.

7News on your page have the following questions via e -mail to Enclave:

1. Have you informed the residents of the rental agreement and the common places that there are no sprinklers in every unit?
2. Do you work to get sprinklers in every unit?
3. When is the goal of having sprinklers in every unit?

Nobody answered after the publication.

In order to help buildings to retrofit and add, the new law also created a working group to find out how the challenges can be overcome with the costs.

The President of the National Fire Sprinkler Association and the former state fire brigade marshal Shane Ray are a member of this working group and said 7News that it will be crucial to receive recommendations to firefighters as soon as possible.

“We know that fire sprinklers buy time, and time buys life. Feuerprinkler are the only component that can handle the fire until the firefighters arrive,” said Ray. “In the past 30 years we have done a good job to protect commercial buildings, but not very good work to deal with residential buildings. Therefore, the work of this group is so important and the results of it have to be taken seriously.”

The governor signed the Melanie Nicholle Diaz Fire Safety Act in May 2024, and the working group held its first session in October 2024.

The group and their sub -committees have met eight times, with the last meeting taking place in December 2024.

Ray said these meetings were already productive.

“You are looking for the risk, you look at options and you look at the costs. You have made a lot of progress with data with cost estimates,” said Ray.

At that time last year, 73 skyscrapers still had no sprinklers in every unit, according to the fire brigade officials of Montgomery County.

This number remains the same as now, which means that no new apartments or condominiums have been retrofitted last year.

7News on her page Ray asked what was the biggest challenge to add these buildings to add sprinklers.

“Well, the challenge of letting her retrofit is to only bring people to start. The standard enables 12 years to do this and they have to start now. It's not as if this will happen overnight,” said Ray. “The local governments and state governments can do a lot. Montgomery County has done this in the past: Give tax incentives for retrofitting. The state of Minnesota did this.”

While the working group continues to discuss solutions, the residents are waiting for the apartments to make their contribution.

Harlekin said 7News that the fire in his apartment complex and the deadly fire in the arrival apartments made it two years ago to become more vigilant.

“It is worrying to see that something like this can happen in an apartment complex,” said Harlekin. “If there are sprinklers now, it is of course more concerned.”