Steve,
Your mention of the Sofa Super Center Store fire brought back some very
painful memories for me. By chance, I was at the South Carolina Fire
Academy in Columbia, SC, the day that event took place. Nine
firefighters were killed in attempting to battle the fire, all of whom
had been trained at some point at the facility there in Columbia. A
mutual friend of yours, and I, attended services there the next day for
those fallen. It was a tragedy, in every sense of the word.
As you noted in your earlier remarks, what ensued was almost as horrific
as the fire and loss of life. A significant number of governmental
agencies started pointing fingers at each other, each blaming the other
for what took place. I learned from reading the report issued after the
fire that the building was not sprinklered due to the high cost of
connecting to the municipal water supply. Estimates quoted at the time
were that the water purveyor wanted over $200K to allow such a
connection. When that fact came out, some residents of Charleston,
enraged by the loss of life, cut out nine cardboard tombstones, wrote on
them the names of those who died, and placed them on the lawn in front
of the water department with another sign which read, "Happy now?" A
picture of that was on the front page of the Charleston and Columbia
papers the next day.
Adding to the events in Charleston were the lack of any clear means of
egress or any clear firefighting access. Indeed, two of the
firefighters in the building died when they could not force open a door
labeled "FIRE EXIT KEEP CLEAR" in huge letters, as a result of a trash
dumpster being placed against that door on the outside.
The number of responsible agencies there who did only "drive by"
inspections, and never really looked into what was a building filled to
the rafters with exposed, expanded Group A plastics, with no clear path
of egress, no fire sprinklers, and blocked fire exits was an awful
example of how such action, or inaction, can turn into a nightmare in a
heartbeat.
I have to admit, I immediately thought of that the moment I heard the
first news about the horror in Oakland.
Ken Wagoner
Escondido, CA
On 12/6/2016 1:22 PM, Steve Leyton wrote:
John:
Industry, fire service and the OSFM have been working with ACWA
(Association of California Water Agencies) and the at-large community
of water purveyors for years to assure (to the greatest extent
possible) that encumbrances to sprinkler system installations are
removed. The two areas that intrude on pro-sprinkler interests the
most are usurious fees for both large diameter services that are
installed as a retrofit and upcharges to 1” meters for sprinklered
SFD’s. Through legislation and lobbying, fee schedules for utility
connections in new construction are closely overseen; this being
California, there are all sorts of developer fees that are charged,
and connecting to the water system is no different. But it’s a lot
easier to drop $30K when it’s part of a $2M overall fee package than
it would be to just fork it over “out of pocket” long after the
building is built. New construction fee packages for sprinklered
buildings are also generally structured on the assumption that there
will be less fire flow impact and less fire department operations
impact so fees for those services are tempered.
Remember that this state is extremely proactive regarding fire
sprinklers – we have a nearly 100% sprinklered new construction
environment including all dwelling units. No city – especially in
the Bay Area – is going to allow an impediment to retrofitting a
building to hold up, or more accurately afford a building owner
leverage to argue hardship in undertaking a sprinkler retrofit,
especially if it’s voluntary. In this case, had the new use been
permitted the sprinklers would have been mandated by code but I’m
pretty sure that the fire service connection would have been
facilitated by City of Oakland with little drama. Looking back at
the 2007 Sofa Super Store fire in Charleston, SC we would find that
exact scenario however: my recollection is that the owner claimed
hardship in the face of a proposed $100,000 (or something like that)
capacity and connection fee for the fire service that would have been
required to serve sprinklers in that building.
Steve
*From:*Sprinklerforum
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of
*John Paulsen
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 06, 2016 11:21 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Subject:* RE: Ghostship Fire
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]
<mailto:[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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