Subdivisions must have fire truck accessible roads
By Dwight Otwell Editor

Developers are now required to build roads wide enough with a grade that will allow fire trucks to reach homes in their subdivisions.

The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners Monday approved an addition to the Fire Code that will make homes on mountainsides and in gated communities safer.

"We will have some folks (developers) who won't be happy about this because it places requirements on devel- opers where they have had no requirements in the past," said Cherokee County Fire Marshal W.C. King.

"We have homes that most insurance companies won't insure because they aren't accessible for fire trucks," he said. "Two weeks ago we hadn't lost a house to a wildland fire. Now we have (The Wilscott Mountain fire). We have some homes on ridgetops where the road access isn't favorable to the residents in their passenger vehicles so they aren't favorable to a fire truck."

Adoption of Appendix D of the Fire Code includes setting minimum road widths of 20 feet, setting a maximum grade of 10 percent, requiring turnarounds at dead-end roads (not driveways) and requiring gated communities to have the gates siren activated so fire trucks can get in if there is a fire.

The new regulations aren't retroactive so they don't affect existing developments but only future developments.

In another matter, Cherokee County Manager David Badger said the anticipated completion date of the new jail is August 8, 2008. But the facility could be completed months earlier than that.