Committee approves bill to lower minimum age for fire-extinguisher inspectors

A House committee voted to advance a measure that would lower the minimum age to inspect fire extinguishers to 18. Representative Kelly introduced House Bill 30 81 and said the change would align fire-extinguisher inspections with other trades such as sprinkler and alarm work.

Supporters said the change brings consistency across related licenses and removes an age mismatch in current rules. "So this bill would drop it to age 18 and bring it in line with the other license," Representative Kelly said when introducing the measure. Kelly moved for adoption and a second was entered; the chair closed debate and recorded the committee vote as noted in the transcript. The chair then declared the bill passed by the committee.

The bill was presented as a business-related licensing change with no further substantive debate recorded at the committee level. The committee did not register individual named roll-call votes in the transcript beyond the final tally noted by the presiding officer.