When I first came on the Technical committee for Residential Sprinkler systems it was mid-cycle, between ROP and ROC. On the morning I attended my first meeting, I was greeted by an older gentleman and encourage to put my notebook down in the spot next to his at the table. At meetings, we display a tent card in front of our seat, facing the other members and he hadn’t gotten his. Not knowing him, I said “good morning” and went to get my card and a coffee. I came back to find him talking with Jeff Shapiro, who I knew well by then. He said, “Steve, I assume you know Chet?”. I recovered quickly and said, “I’ve never had the privilege but I’ve heard your name once or twice.” He laughed and shook my hand enthusiastically and so began my one-time two day friendship with Chet Schirmer. His failing health prevented him from serving the next cycle and our paths never crossed again. But for some reason, Chet took a shine to me (to the extent a couple people commented that they couldn’t believe how nice he was being to me.)
We ate lunch together two days in a row; I had about 3 hours of conversation with him. In the course of our chats, I asked him about regrets and his demeanor changed visibly. He told me about the Haunted Castle and his testimony. I remember his half-smile when he said “They really named that attraction accurately because I’m haunted by the Haunted Castle” and said that his testimony was, “… the biggest f***ing mistake I ever made.” The candor of a curmudgeon … What were the ceiling heights of those corridors Brad? Are you comparing the labyrinth environment of Haunted Castle to the rectilinear volume of a warehouse building? With 18-20’ ceiling over an open mezzanine? The fire/smoke movement in Haunted Castle was deadly because the corridor in which most of those kids died was an exhaust pipe, no? It’s very possible that a fire in the Ghost Ship could have been burning with sprinklers operating over it and tenability maintained for 10 or 15 minutes within the building? How long would it take to log the layers down from a 20’ lid to a point that encumbers tenability? We have no idea and probably never will because the gather that night and the fire load within the building were all illegal. Haunted Castle was permitted, Ghost Ship was not. Comparing apples to oranges is great at the farmers market, but not on a technical forum. If you want to question the efficacy of fire sprinklers in residential and “live/work” environments, please feel free to exercise your 1st Amendment rights on the NAHB forum, assuming they have one. SL From: Sprinklerforum [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Brad Casterline Sent: Friday, December 09, 2016 10:05 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Ghostship Fire http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/publications/nfpa-journal/2014/may-june-2014/features/the-haunted-castle-revisited "FIRE SPRINKLERS WOULD HAVE STOPPED THAT FIRE BEFORE IT SPREAD FROM ITS POINT OF ORIGIN." ~Steve L~ "Sprinklers can't do it all everytime, and when the stairs to the highest area of the space are wood pallets, we are asking to much of them re life safety." ~me~ "Sprinklers are sometimes thought of as a magic bullet that can solve nearly any fire protection problem", Fairchild says. "They're really just another piece of the overall building safety puzzle, and they're dependent on the other pieces they're attached to". ~Jack Fairchild~ "I can tell you fancy I can tell you plain". ~Bob Dylan~ On Dec 6, 2016 12:44 PM, "Steve Leyton" <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: 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. _______________________________________________ Sprinklerforum mailing list [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> http://lists.firesprinkler.org/listinfo.cgi/sprinklerforum-firesprinkler.org
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