As a former fire inspector, I can attest to the fact that landlords indeed complain and fight against installing sprinklers. However, there are creative ways to achieve it. Much of it has to do with the Fire Marshall's priorities. I'm not making any judgements here because I am not familiar with the  division's present priorities.  One ironic thing about this fire is the fact that if the building is repaired, the percentage of damage incurred will require that the building be brought up today's more stringent fire code, which unless I'm mistaken will include sprinklers due to the construction type and number of units. 

Also if I'm not mistaken there used to be some type of property tax break given for retrofitting buildings with sprinklers. I believe that was one of the carrots used for installing sprinklers in the downtown hotels like the Hilton and older portions of the captain cook. It might still be somewhere in the muni codes.