SAUGUS-Fire Chief James Blanchard may not be winning his race to have all new construction in town include sprinklers in every room, but he is making waves.When Greater Lynn Senior Services partnered up with the Saugus Housing Authority to build a senior housing complex at the corner of Talbot and Denver streets Blanchard pushed for sprinklers.The fire last month at the housing complex in Peabody also helped drive his point home. When a fire at the Highland apartments on Dearborn spread up the side of one unit and into the attic it raced through three buildings leaving nothing but devastation in its wake.Blanchard said that Wednesday the GLSS had changed its mind and it will in fact sprinkler the attic of the new building.Blanchard credits Capt. Daniel McNeil with getting developers to change their minds.”He has a way to persuade them, he goes the extra mile,” he said.Blanchard said the senior housing project was the perfect example.The project is being funded through grants so its budget is tight. GLSS officials initially did not want to give in but according to Blanchard, McNeil “went the long way around.””He showed them that it would be senior citizens, who could be slower moving with slower response times,” Blanchard said. “It could be much different than Peabody, the fire could drop down on them.”The Peabody fire swept through in the late afternoon when most residents were still at work. Blanchard said if the fire had broken out at night it could have been a very different story.Putting sprinklers in non-occupied spaces such as attics is what Blanchard calls a gray area. Developers are not required to do it and therefore most don’t.Two reasons are largely to blame for the lack of sprinklers and both are misconceptions according to Blanchard said.Cost is one excuse and Blanchard will concede adding sprinklers to an existing building is expensive. Adding sprinklers into the design of a new building however is not.Blanchard said it’s also thought that sprinklers can and do go off randomly by accident but it’s not true.”People think they can be set off easily and they’ll all go off at once but it’s almost impossible for them to go off accidentally,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen.”He said ultimately a fire hose is going to leave behind far more water damage than sprinklers.Though developers and homeowners are still skeptical Blanchard said the third fire at the Peabody complex on Dearborn Street only serves to prove his point?that every building should have sprinklers in every room.And the fact that GLSS changed its mind gives him hope that other’s might as well.