[jrref]

Since I've been living in the Villages and visiting neighbors and friends who live here, I've noticed that some have no attic stairs but just a thin piece of plywood over the access to their attic over the garage. Also, If they do have attic stairs, none or very few are of the fire rated type.

That said, is there a building code here in the the Villages for fire the rating of the garage. For example, the ceiling should be at least 5/8 inch sheetrock, there should be a fire rated garage access door, etc, to delay the spread of fire for I believe 1 hr, in case of a fire in your garage.

Also, the Garage attic is not separated from the living space attic. And I also see some people who have a vent in their garage door and a fan in the garage ceiling that will turn on when the temperature reaches a certain point. This device would probably acceletate the spread of fire and smoke in a fire in the garage I would think.

In doing some research, It appears that there is no building code for this.

Any thoughts or additional information on the matter?

In some ways when I look at the build of a typical home in the Villages, I'm relatively impressed with the engineering that went into many parts of the design but Fire safety, I'm not sure what to think. Yes in a Block Home, the only way for the fire to spread from the garage would be through the ceilint and the hole for the attic stairs may not be significant unless the whole garage were on fire and at that point the fire rating of the garage stairs may be moot.