SAN ANTONIO - The lives lost in a senior living apartment complex fire in 2014 has the San Antonio Fire Department working to make city high-rises safer.

Five people died over four years ago in the three-alarm-fire at a Castle Hills high-rise. Even though the fire wasn't in their jurisdiction, SAFD has spent the last few years working with 35 high-rises to get retrofitted with sprinkler systems.

Fire Chief Charles Hood gave an update to the city council Tuesday on that process. Because of the cost of such an effort, those buildings have 12 years to update their sprinklers.

"It does seem like a long time, but understanding the issues, the dynamics, the costs, we understand that also. So we have to try to meet in a happy medium where we get these buildings done. But again we want to give the people that are hearing this, the people that are here today … that these buildings are inspected, code compliant. They are safe. We inspect them regularly. But we do know sprinklers would make them safer and improve the safety of our responders," said Hood.

That project in broken into phases and the 35 properties have already receiving official notification.

By year 6, they'll need to have enough water coming in to the building for sprinklers.

By year 9, their sprinkler systems need to be 50 percent completed.

Some of the buildings in San Antonio are already at the 50-percent mark.