The Fire We Don't Like to Talk About

-This idea for this blog started after I became involved in a discussion on CSF. It started me thinking about a strange topic but one that will never be addressed until forced on to the troops.
-The discussion started out with a video of a fire in a strip mall/taxpayer, whatever you like to call them. And it got me thinking, how many times do these occupancies change hands, how many times do tenants come and go and what alterations do they perform without the FD being aware.
-They all need a certificate of occupancy you say. But what about those weird occupancies none of us want to inspect or the Fire Marshal or Inspectors hate being in. You know the one, the new hip night club, the alternative lifestyle bar, the strip joint, peep show place or porn store.
-These businesses do get a certificate of occupancy and they also get away with murdering the fire codes because the FD doesn't want to be seen as giving these business a difficult time or the Inspector doesn't want to be seen as being harassing or some firefighters and company officers are just to immature to enter these occupancies and perform the jobs professionally.
-Yet these very occupancies are a death trap under fire conditions for the occupants as well as firefighters and most of that could be mitigated with inspections prevention and code enforcement.
-The bottom line is, the community may not like the businesses but the city said its ok to operate the business and they received a certificate of occupancy and a business license. Therefore, they are a business like any other yet these places get away with violations that would close down any other business, restaurant, bar or place of public assembly.
-What are the search parameters in these occupancies? The firefighting difficulties?
-Search parameters will be determined by the occupancy type of course. Is this a grocery store that is closed or an all night grocery? Is it a furniture store with a wide open floor plan or a dirty book/peep show kind of place that is subdivided and subdivided and subdivided.
-I know what you're all thinking too. LOL. But, last week we had a fire in a 24 hour peep show joint and it was a nightmare. Lots of cubicles with very limited access, extremely poor ventilation (even after opening the roof) and little to no on scene fire notification within the business to occupants. There was also no appropriate accounting for patrons by the staff. You know, "See no evil" that sort of thing. One FF was injured though not serious. These places are set up to be discreet and that creates problems for the FD.
-One lesson learned was how deceiving the occupancy actually was from the street. Judging from the exterior the companies had no way of telling the vastness and the incredible subdividing that had taken place. A veritable rabbit warren of rooms and narrow hallways. Actually it was a nasty place to have a fire.... on many, many levels, but... enough on that.
-The point is, the occupancy type will start to create a Rescue Profile for arriving companies based on the occupant load. Personnel must be familiar with the occupancies within their response area.... we've all heard that. But who wants to do a pre fire plan on a porn joint or an alternative lifestyle club? Yeah, yeah I know; let's remember we are professionals here. Worse still, how would that look to the public? Yet, we are creating an ultra dangerous situation by avoiding these places. So how do we address this problem? Who would be held accountable if there were a huge loss of life like the Coconut Grove? Worse still when they find out the city had not inspected in years or ever?
-We have two more of these types of occupancies in my response area and the structures have been abandoned. We did a walk through with the BC and it was shocking to see the subdivision violations and blatant fire code violations the occupants got away with because the Fire Marshal wouldn't do an inspection. If this were any other occupancy it would have been inspected and shut down with the door padlocked until the violations were addressed. As it stands the remodeling has so negatively impacted the structure that the standing orders are, Under no conditions will personnel enter the buildings under fire conditions.
-We all heard about subdividing by tenants contributing to the FF deaths in the Bronx and the firemen being forced to jump. Now imagine being in a commercial occupancy, a bar or small theater that is broken up into rooms 15x15 or smaller.
-These occupancies; porn places, peep shows, rave clubs, the new super hip night club, the subdividing that takes place will create difficult conditions at best and easily contribute to delayed fire detection, delayed or no on sight notification to patrons, impossible search conditions, extraordinarily difficult ventilation conditions and early collapse of the structure.
-The Fire Marshal's Office, Fire Prevention Bureau, what ever you call him, needs to get out there and inspect these places before they are discovered at 3 AM with heavy fire showing. An example is The Station Night Club in RI. A simple inspection could have caught the situation before it got out of hand. The Coconut Grove is an example of conditions and fire changing codes. Another was related to me by an old friend from FDNY Rescue 1, Kevin Shea. Rescue 1 responded to a multiple alarm fire in a peep show place in Midtown and the incident almost killed several firefighters due to the illegal subdividing that took place complicated by the delay in fire notification.
-Do you have these occupancies in your response area? Are they inspected regularly like every other business? Who handles the inspections? Are the companies responding to these occupancies aware of special hazards or are they to immature or unprofessional to even address the topic of an unusual "unique" occupancy?
-It becomes a target of my frustration when firefighters get injured in routine fires and is compounded when we find out it could have been prevented.