Between 2006 and 2007, more than 4,000 structure fires were reported throughout West Virginia, with a little less than three quarters of the fires occurring in people's homes.

Now, as a result of the high numbers of homes lost of fire every year as well as the thousands of deaths and injuries they cause across the nation, some communities are taking steps to ensure that all new homes have a feature more commonly associated with office buildings than houses: fire sprinklers.

While no communities in West Virginia have taken such steps, both federal and state fire officials say it is a good idea for anyone buying a new home or remodeling an old one to think about installing a fire sprinkler system, although they admit they have a lot of work to do convincing the public it's worth the cost and effort.

"We are still fighting a battle to get residents to maintain operating smoke detectors," Carol Nolte, deputy state fire marshal at the west Virginia State Fire Marshal's Office.

Residential fire sprinklers have been around for decades but are not as common as the sprinkler systems found in commercial buildings, largely because most local governments don't mandate new homes to have them, unlike fire safety codes for office buildings and other public structures.