In my humble opinion, Steve is absolutely, positively, 100% right on this. There are too many documented cases where sprinkler activation inhibited the development of, or controlled an emerging fire. Where the flow switch gave timely warning for occupants to evacuate and called fire responders. Unfortunately, the fire codes are built on past tragedies and as long as we fail to learn from history, people will continue to loose life and property to fire. The REAL tragedy here is that IT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED! This chain of events could have been broken in so many places!
The owner of this building will pay a heavy price for his reckless roll of the dice. I would like to know one thing though from forum members in California; does Oakland have the same policy in place in which the local water purveyor charges a large fee to make a water tap for fire protection service? A 6” fire only tap here in Columbus will run you around $30K (which is actually a decrease over past rates) before the first piece of pipe is laid. It represents a very serious impediment to retrofitting sprinklers in older structures. I am NOT making excuse for this owner, I am trying to identify systemic impediments to providing active fire protection systems to the segments of our country that need it the most. Every time I hear a news story where a child (or children) has died in a house fire, it angers me because I know it was completely preventable! I have attended meetings with the residential developers that oppose sprinklers. I’ve heard their arguments, all of which come back to $’s. I live in the only sprinkler protected house in my suburb and that took major arm twisting of the builder and he didn’t pay a dime for the install! We have a cost effective prevention solution. When will we learn America…?! John Paulsen Crown Fire System Design Grove City, OH From: Sprinklerforum [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Leyton Sent: Tuesday, December 6, 2016 1:45 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Ghostship Fire I’d like to open a separate thread on this topic and address a comment made yesterday that, “… sprinklers alone might not have saved but a few more lives – but they would have saved more property and probably prevented the roof collapse.” I fundamentally disagree with that statement but also want to emphasize that the failures here were of process and gross negligence by the building owner. In summary, a commercial building was illegally converted from commercial/industrial/storage to a live/work occupancy. To date, no exact timeline has been proffered for when the first artists-in-residence moved in, but there are anecdotal reports of parties occurring at this property at 18 months ago. There were complaints filed against the property in 2014 for blight and accumulated debris, so the live/work use is likely more than two years old. The last permitted use was as a warehouse and the owner allegedly made statements of intent to turn it into a recycling center. As recently as 11/14/16 an inspector was at the property in response to a complaint but city officials say he couldn’t access the building. There is an open investigation pursuant to that attempt to inspect. The building as stuffed full of combustible furnishings but if you look at the photos that are circulating on line, it’s mostly wood and textiles and things that would normally be found in a residence or an artist’s studio. Such items are highly combustible but burn at low temperatures and would be classified as Class I or Class II commodities – not profoundly hazardous. Photos of the interiors and debris pile show lots of clutter, but not concentrated amounts of flammable/combustible liquids. So, for a live/work loft environment, the place may not have been overloaded and the photos I’ve seen remind me of many of the antiques barns and malls I’ve visited. To say that sprinklers would or might not have saved more than a few lives is misleading and leaves the conversation open to haters and opponents of residential sprinkler requirements. Standard spray sprinklers would almost certainly have controlled, suppressed, even extinguished a fire with this type of fire load, had they been installed. The issues of adequate egress and structural integrity of the mezzanine would be moot, because had the building been permitted and legally re-classified, then such conditions would not have been present and sprinklers would have been. But it’s not just that the artist colony wasn’t permitted or sprinklered; even if that had been done, they were still having illegal A-occupancy events. As it stands, the owner of the building and the promoter/manager of the Ghostship community are toast. 36 counts of negligent homicide are a good place to start. Code violations, endangerment, fraud … I’m sure a creative DA can stack charges against them worth 2 or 3 life sentences. And the civil litigation will be breathtaking; their personal and professional wealth will be wiped out and their insurance companies taxed to the limits of coverage and likely beyond. The building and fire officials will be grilled as to why these conditions were still in place after multiple complaints. When – if ever – were inspections done at or inside the property? What did they know and when did they know it? Politicians and community leaders will express outrage and, as with the Station Nightclub fire, there will be a push to tighten enforcement and get sprinklers into buildings where change of use and occupancy are planned or have been undertaken, with and without permits. This is also a good time to encourage members of our communities to be vigilant, in the same way our government has asked us to be wary of potentially unhinged people: If you see something, say something. Tell your kids, if you go into a building and it looks unsafe, turn your asses around and get out. My kids and employees have all heard that speech several times now. But to be clear: FIRE SPRINKLERS WOULD HAVE STOPPED THAT FIRE BEFORE IT SPREAD FROM ITS POINT OF ORIGIN. Standing down from my soapbox, Steve L.
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