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Building collapse// concert fire // History repeats, repeats, repeats

Again there were fire sprinklers in that building but they didn't stop the conflagration, the complaint is that they weren't serviced, so what happens do they automatically cease functioning when they go beyond inspection date? Note that nothing is said about the sprinklers, you have to go to the report to see the inspector's first entry: " Immediately Service Fire Sprinkler system Immediately.
fireinspection.jpg


They were in the building a few days before the fire and wrote the report, it appears that the tenants were more concerned about keeping them out so they wouldn't lose their housing. Had there been no sprinklers you can bet your a$$ that the fire marshals would have convened a press conference at the scene claiming that the lives would have been saved had there been sprinklers, do these things ever work?

East Bay Times said:
When that inspector finally got behind the locked doors on Friday, he documented 11 severe fire hazards, including extension cords being used instead of wall outlets. He wrote that fire extinguishers, emergency lighting and marked exits must be maintained and provided throughout the building, and smoke detectors in each unit.

Inspector David Davis also demanded immediate service and certification of the fire alarm system and fire sprinkler system, but he didn’t order the residential building, where three nonprofits provided homes to the poor, evacuated and closed. Nor did he order the building owner to place a person on “fire watch” to patrol the structure until repairs were made, as state law allows.

Less than 72 hours later, the West Oakland building where more than 80 people, including many children, lived, was an inferno. Some jumped from windows and raced down fire escapes. Others made it outside in bare feet, their belongings left behind. Firefighters rescued 15 people, and four were hospitalized with smoke inhalation, including two children.

He cited confusion over the tenant harassment, and said residents were hesitant to have city officials inside. “They’ve been on stranger danger with everything that has been going on,” he said. “They’ve been so confused, they didn’t know what to do.”¹



¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...evere-problems-three-days-before-fatal-blaze/
 
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Interesting

Does not say if the sprinkler system was off or on.

Plus you do not know the extent of the coverage.

Were void space protected, corridors, attic????
 
Our fire inspectors would be sued and/or in jail if we allowed documented blocked egress or a compromised suppression system to remain more than 4 hours and people died...
 
^ same in our jurisdiction.

And as to the question about do sprinklers ever work, I can say firsthand that they saved a project of mine about 10 years ago when a man fell asleep with a lit cigarette in an apartment building. A single head was triggered and it completely suppressed the fire. We drilled holes in the floor to drain the water to the basement and then dried it out and repaired the finishes. The building could have been a complete loss otherwise, not to mention the possible loss of life.
 
"The eviction notice came despite the city identifying the Oakland produce market location as one where its staff is working with the property owners to prevent displacement. Mayor Libby Schaaf issued an executive order in January directing staff to work cooperatively with landlords to bring commercial or industrial buildings up to residential code requirements."

I wonder if this is why he didn't shut them down?
 
Again there were fire sprinklers in that building but they didn't stop the conflagration, the complaint is that they weren't serviced, so what happens do they automatically cease functioning when they go beyond inspection date? Note that nothing is said about the sprinklers, you have to go to the report to see the inspector's first entry: " Immediately Service Fire Sprinkler system Immediately.
fireinspection.jpg


They were in the building a few days before the fire and wrote the report, it appears that the tenants were more concerned about keeping them out so they wouldn't lose their housing. Had there been no sprinklers you can bet your a$$ that the fire marshals would have convened a press conference at the scene claiming that the lives would have been saved had there been sprinklers, do these things ever work?





¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...evere-problems-three-days-before-fatal-blaze/



I wonder when a fire inspection was done prior to 2016??


No it should not have taken a month to get in.


Plus, kind of common area, like the ghost ship, a tenant could have walked you in. You might not have seen every enclosure, such as the sprinkler room, but could get a feel for the building, and if needed do a warrant to gain access to the rest of the building.
 
I wonder when a fire inspection was done prior to 2016??


No it should not have taken a month to get in.


Plus, kind of common area, like the ghost ship, a tenant could have walked you in. You might not have seen every enclosure, such as the sprinkler room, but could get a feel for the building, and if needed do a warrant to gain access to the rest of the building.

Since the Ghost Ship fire the concern all over Oakland was eviction not safety, the mayor even passed an ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry by any building or fire inspector, I would think that getting a tenant to walk you in would be considered trickery and the inspection invalid.

I have to wonder now that there as been a second fire claiming human life how the city will deal with that now? I guess we'll find out but is there any evidence as to whether any of the sprinklers actually activated.

There was an editorial in the local paper today blasting the city for lack of communication between departments:

East Bay Times said:
Both tragedies were preventable. If only Oakland’s inspection systems had worked the way they should have. If only warning signs had been heeded and aggressively responded to.

Both tragedies were preventable. If only Oakland’s inspection systems had worked the way they should have. If only warning signs had been heeded and aggressively responded to.

Start with Ghost Ship: At first, officials said that before the fire no city workers had been inside the warehouse, which was filled with furniture and turned out to have no sprinklers or fire alarms, only one obvious exit, cords strung to provide electricity and a makeshift stairwell built out of wood pallets.

Start with Ghost Ship: At first, officials said that before the fire no city workers had been inside the warehouse, which was filled with furniture and turned out to have no sprinklers or fire alarms, only one obvious exit, cords strung to provide electricity and a makeshift stairwell built out of wood pallets.¹

The problem becomes if one department like the police notify another department like fire are they going to have to notify building as well? If they do all Hell will break loose when they have to start enforcing Disability, structural, energy, and green codes.



¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...re-highlights-oakland-inspection-dysfunction/
 
Well my constitutional enforcement

If you can walk into a public area, you are legal, like the lobby area of a business, but not back offices.

If an apartment tenant calls and asks me to come look inside thier apartment,
I feel that is legal, even without contacting the owner, plus any area I walk through to get that apartment unit is plain view, as long as I do not open doors.

Same would have applied to the ghost ship, if a tenant was saleing stuff to the public, to me that area is fair game.

Have not been before the surpreme court yet
 
Well my constitutional enforcement

If you can walk into a public area, you are legal, like the lobby area of a business, but not back offices.

If an apartment tenant calls and asks me to come look inside thier apartment,
I feel that is legal, even without contacting the owner, plus any area I walk through to get that apartment unit is plain view, as long as I do not open doors.

Same would have applied to the ghost ship, if a tenant was saleing stuff to the public, to me that area is fair game.

Have not been before the surpreme court yet
CDA, the problem now is that there is a city ordinance requiring a 10 day notice before any fire or building inspector can inspect the property, if you did gain entrance you would probably have to say: "Sorry, I can't inspect for 10 days, here is my 10 day notice and I'll be back.
 
Since the Ghost Ship fire the concern all over Oakland was eviction not safety, the mayor even passed an ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry by any building or fire inspector, I would think that getting a tenant to walk you in would be considered trickery and the inspection invalid.

I have to wonder now that there as been a second fire claiming human life how the city will deal with that now? I guess we'll find out but is there any evidence as to whether any of the sprinklers actually activated.

There was an editorial in the local paper today blasting the city for lack of communication between departments:



The problem becomes if one department like the police notify another department like fire are they going to have to notify building as well? If they do all Hell will break loose when they have to start enforcing Disability, structural, energy, and green codes.



¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03...re-highlights-oakland-inspection-dysfunction/


Do you have a link to this ::,
ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry
 
Do you have a link to this ::,
ordinance requiring 10 days notice prior to entry
I heard 10 days, interesting to say that one proposal is two weeks and the mayor countered with 5 days, I'd bet the 10 days was a compromise.

East Bay Times said:
OAKLAND — Following an executive order issued by Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf earlier this month, the City Council on Monday approved the first of what is expected to be several changes to the city’s laws to protect tenants in the wake of a deadly fire in the Ghost Ship artists collective in December that killed 36 people.

The council also approved a resolution declaring Dec. 2 as “Ghost Ship Remembrance Day” in the city to memorialize the lives lost in the inferno.

The legislation increases the amount of the money tenants can receive when they are forced to relocate while property owners make code compliance upgrades to their building. It also expands the definition of which tenants are eligible to receive those funds and beefs up the penalties for landlords who do not comply.

Under the new ordinance, landlords must pay $6,500 to tenants in studio or one-bedroom apartments who are displaced for more than 60 days, compared to $3,446 before the council took action. That number is based on doubling the fair market rents for Alameda County, as defined by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Comparatively, residents in two-bedroom apartments would have received $4,346 prior to the change, versus the $8,000 for which they are now eligible. And tenants living in buildings with three or more units can receive $9,875, compared to $6,034 they would have received previously. Apartments with tenants who are low-income, seniors, disabled or have children under the age of 18 can receive an additional $2,500 to relocate under the updated ordinance.

Landlords who plan to complete repairs in less than 60 days must pay for the total cost of tenants’ temporary housing while work on the building is completed.

More than 100 people filled the council chamber at City Hall, mostly advocating for the additional protections, though some urged the council to hold property owners accountable for illegally renting out commercial spaces for residential use.

Councilwoman Rebecca Kaplan sponsored the legislation, which she began drafting well before the fire highlighted the precarious nature of the unpermitted dwellings. The Ghost Ship warehouse had been illegally converted into living spaces for artists who needed affordable housing and a welcoming atmosphere to perform or create their art.

The council asked for more information about two different proposals designed to strengthen tenants’ rights and slow the pace of evictions in the wake of the fire.

Members of the Oakland Warehouse Coalition, a group that coalesced in the fire’s wake, introduced a suite of legislative proposals late last month covering myriad issues around unpermitted living spaces, which the council discussed on Monday. The proposal seeks to stem evictions from commercially-zoned properties, halt red-tagging for building violations not considered life-threatening, provide amnesty for past landlords leasing commercially-zoned properties as residential units and provide tenants with two weeks advanced notice of any city inspections, among other provisions to strengthen tenant protections.

Under Schaaf’s plan, residents will receive a five-day warning before any building, housing or fire inspectors can enter the premises. And, the order calls for a review of funding available to assist in legalizing buildings, as well as an examination of the city’s existing tenant protections to see if any changes can better prevent residents from being kicked out of their homes.¹


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/01...fs-up-tenant-protections-in-ghost-ships-wake/
 
It will not matter

The good lords will have decent buildings

And the bad lords no matter how many advanced days you give them, will have pages of write ups.
 
It will not matter

The good lords will have decent buildings

And the bad lords no matter how many advanced days you give them, will have pages of write ups.

There is an interesting write up on the landlord on the front page of the paper today, he is Stanford guy but has to be really smart, as a Korean he had to pay a huge SAT penalty to get in (they take Caucasians as the norm and the penalize more intelligent peoples like Indian's, Koreans, and Chinese, then give huge advantages to less intelligent peoples like blacks, Hispanics, and American Indians in the interest of diversity and inclusion), here is the article, it's an interesting story beyond the fire.
 
In today's paper they blame a candle in a room that lacked elctricity:

East Bay Times said:
OAKLAND — The cause of Monday’s deadly fire in a packed West Oakland residential building was a lit candle, a city spokeswoman said Thursday.

“The fire has been deemed to have been accidentally caused. The fire investigation report should be completed in the next few weeks,” the city said in a statement issued shortly after 6 p.m.

A city spokeswoman, Karen Boyd, said late Thursday that the accidental cause was a lit candle. Sources said the candle was in a man’s room that lacked electricity.

Squatters had taken over the building’s third floor, survivors have said.

Four people died in the blaze at 2551 San Pablo Ave., four were hospitalized, and dozens were displaced.

A fire safety inspector had been in the building three days before the deadly blaze.

The city also released a few past fire inspection reports. In one, that is undated, a person complained to the city that “the management is allowing the neighbor to smoke in his room; smoke fires in the kitchen, smoke detectors are constantly chirping, batteries completely shot.”

Another record shows the city used the building, where three nonprofits provided low-income housing and social services, as a “warming center” in November 2014, a place where homeless people can seek shelter from cold weather.¹

Smoking in buildings is illegal in Oakland? No wonder lots of homeless people won't leave the streets and go into homeless shelters. Smoke detectors constantly chirping, isn't that always the case? Still no mention of the fire sprinklers, they were there but did they go off? You can bet your a$$ that if there were no sprinklers every article about the fire would be blaming the lack of sprinklers as the cause of the deaths.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03/30/oakland-candle-blamed-for-deadly-fire/
 
East Bay Times said:
OAKLAND — Three days before a candle likely ignited a Oakland apartment house blaze that killed four people, inspectors ordered a dangerous extension cord removed from the same room where the fire started.

Related Articles

Safety problems plague nonprofit at center of deadly Oakland fire
Editorial: Oakland’s fire inspection dysfunction once again fatal


The news, revealed in an interview Tuesday with Oakland Assistant Fire Marshal Maria Sabatini, raises the possibility that a resident of the second-floor room was using a candle because electricity was no longer available.

“That might have been the case,” Sabatini said. That question, and whether the extension cord feeding electricity from elsewhere in the building had actually been disconnected, will probably be part of the ongoing investigation into the fire, she said.

The sprinkler system, which was only on the third floor, was not operative. While the inspectors required its immediate servicing, the system was not legally required because of the age of the building, Sabatini said.

The building also had an inadequate number of fire extinguishers and lacked required evacuation diagrams.

The inspectors did not enter all the rooms. “We weren’t trying to go into individual units because we don’t have the authority for that,” she said. “Those are people’s private spaces. It was the common areas that we were focused on.”

If they heard activity inside, they knocked on the doors and requested permission to enter.

In two cases, Sabatini said, her team noticed extension cords leading under doors into rooms. One was the room where the fire later started. The preliminary finding is that a candle started the blaze, according to city spokeswoman Karen Boyd.

Sabatini said she did not notice candles during the inspection. “Any candle use, we would have tried to stop that immediately,” she said.¹

The articles in the media are now directing the blame at the city, especially the fire department. I left the bolded links in that you can follow by opening the link below. I'm with you guys on this, this is a socioeconomic problem, we live in an overpopulated area with large areas of lower class people, no amount of firefighters or prevention policies is going to stop people without money from squatting anywhere they can, they try to eliminate electrical problems and create candle burning problems, you are damned if you do and damned if you don't here. All these cities that can't take care of their poor and homeless are declaring themselves 'sanctuary cities' inviting illegals to join the hordes of already impoverished people, I see this as an irresolvable problem.

In the adjacent city of Richmond there was another fire where squatters broke into a boarded-up building setting it on fire,

East Bay Times said:
NORTH RICHMOND — A suspicious fire that heavily damaged a vacant, boarded-up duplex in this unincorporated community Monday was most likely started by squatters, authorities said Tuesday.

Officials said people living at the duplex had illegally forced entry into the single-story structure.

No one was present when firefighters first responded to the blaze in the 1600 block of Second Street about 6:15 a.m. Monday.²

The only way to get rid of poor and drug addicted people is get rid of entitlements, maybe they'll go north to Canada.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/04/inspectors-requirement-might-have-led-to-fatal-oakland-fire/

² http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/04/squatters-suspected-in-blaze-at-vacant-north-richmond-duplex/
 
Another question here is since the fire started on the third floor, occupied by squatters, there were fire sprinklers that were unserviced, sprinklers don't have to be serviced to work, why weren't they working? Perhaps the water to the sprinkler meter had been turned off due to cost?
 
Interesting article today:

East Bay Times said:
OAKLAND — Several city fire inspectors lack the “minimum” certification requirements for their positions and must complete classes by next week or they could be fired, according to a letter obtained by this newspaper and a fire administrator.

On April 27, co-Acting Fire Chief Darin White wrote to members of the embattled Fire Prevention Bureau that they must complete the training by May 12.

“City personnel records indicate that you do not currently possess an International Code Council Fire Inspector Certificate which is required by the City of Oakland classification specification (for fire inspector positions),” the letter begins. White cites the city’s requirements, which specify such training must be completed by the end of the worker’s nine-month probation period.

The employees have until next Friday to submit their valid certificate, otherwise they will not have completed the “minimum qualifications” for the position.

“Failure to maintain the minimum qualifications of one’s classification may be cause for discharge,” White concludes.

The letters were sent as a result of officials reviewing the job requirements, co-Acting Fire Chief Mark Hoffmann said Friday. The scramble to get inspectors compliant with the only certification requirement the city has for the job comes as Mayor Libby Schaaf vows to overhaul the unit and triple its size in the wake of two fires that have killed 40 people since December.

“I don’t intend to lose a single inspector,” said Hoffmann. “These are all seasoned inspectors who have good skill sets. We are going to try to get compliance. We are in violation of no laws or rules.”¹

Wow, 26 people die because inspectors didn't stay ICC current! Or maybe that's what the lawsuits will say.



¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...nd-fire-inspectors-lack-proper-certification/
 
So where is the real fire chief??


Not bad if you want to work in Oakland:::


city is actively soliciting candidates for the new inspector positions with annual salaries ranging from $70,000 to $85,000. In those job postings, the city says it has an “urgent need” for inspectors and is looking for two years’ experience of journey-level fire code enforcement experience.
 
So where is the real fire chief??


Not bad if you want to work in Oakland:::


city is actively soliciting candidates for the new inspector positions with annual salaries ranging from $70,000 to $85,000. In those job postings, the city says it has an “urgent need” for inspectors and is looking for two years’ experience of journey-level fire code enforcement experience.

The gal chief we heard so much about who threatened to sue the homeowners who complained took sick time off for a month or two to qualify for retirement, then she retired at about 50 years of age, this is her second retirement so she would be up in the $200,000 a year pension neighborhood.

You can't live on that here, the cheapest apartment out there is in the $2,000 a month neighborhood in a bad neighborhood, $70,000 a year would probably net about $45,000 after California's taxes, take $24,000 off for rent and you are left with $20,000 to drive around in a car and feed yourself, not much of a life unless you want to sit around on the forum all day and night, in a decent neighborhood you can always eat dogfood.
 
CDA:

To elaborate, Oakland rentals and property costs are continuing to rise in spite of high crime rates because or gentrification, the whacko environmentalists don't want any building, they want everything green for parks etc., across the Bay in Silicon Valley techies are paid an average of $125,000 a year for "grunt work", they can't afford to pay rent over there which averages $4,500 a month so many are living in cars or vans to alleviate the housing shortage the tech companies are running commute buses back and forth to Oakland on a daily basis, here is an example of a residential street near Google/Apple/Facebook etc.. We can't buy land to build, if we do spend a fortune for the land then we have to spend another fortune for a permit and the costs of code compliance, a friend just was allowed to subdivide his 5.6 acres into 3 lots so he can build two more houses, it took him 29 years to get this far,¹ now he's got more years to get a permit then hope his costs haven't been driven so high he will lose money on the houses, meanwhile the cities are declaring themselves sanctuary cities so more illegals can live here on the streets.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/04/26/phm-freitas/
 
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Hey CDA, the firefighters were dancing and partying with the hairy legged hipster girls, firefighters are druggies too?

East Bay Times said:
OAKLAND — Two years before 36 partygoers died in the Ghost Ship warehouse inferno, Oakland firefighters toured the cluttered firetrap, even dancing in the same second-story performance space where the victims would huddle in their final moments, according to witnesses and documents.

The visits started Sept. 26, 2014, a Friday, when firefighters extinguished a couch fire outside the warehouse artists’ collective on 31st Avenue before touring the eclectic interior, people who saw them inside the building said. One firefighter called it a “museum” and stopped to play one of the many pianos scattered around the space cluttered with wood and furniture stacked to the ceilings. Another firefighter told master tenant Derick Almena that as long as there were marked fire exits, they’d be OK, a resident who overheard the conversation told this newspaper.

The next day, firefighters returned — twice — hanging out for hours inside the warehouse as a private party with live bands raged upstairs and chefs roasted a pig outside, multiple attendees said.¹.


¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...-witnesses-say-oakland-firefighters-attended/
 
There was another large fire yesterday on a mixed use building under construction, the second fire in this same building, this time In Emeryville. a small formerly industrial city sandwiched between Oakland and Berkeley.
East Bay Times said:
EMERYVILLE — Fire crews monitored hot spots and continued to clean up Sunday morning after a massive five-alarm fire at a construction site that started more than 24 hours earlier.

Small fires still were smoldering at the building in the 3800 block of San Pablo Avenue, on the Emeryville-Oakland border, and smoke still was billowing from spots of the construction site, according to dispatchers, and crews were expected to remain there through the day. They stayed overnight putting out small spot fires through the night, according to Twitter posts by Alameda County Fire.

The massive blaze that could be seen 80 blocks away started just before 5 a.m. Saturday at the same construction site where a six-alarm inferno burned in July.¹

This is maybe 9 blocks north of the last Oakland fire, this time the builder has cameras in the construction work and maybe they will be able to identify the arsonists. These arson fires are usually the work of anti-gentrification activist groups, the city only approves residential if it includes commercial so they get sales tax monies, this also complies with Plan Bay Area's requirement to eliminate cars by putting all necessary commercial within walking/biking distance of living and mass transit. Most major tech companies in Silicon Valley are busing tech workers to and from areas like this because the environmental activists won't allow expansion in Silicon Valley, this really pisses off the activists for the poor these buildings replace, there are various anti-capitalist groups organizing to stop gentrification, something the cities want to increase their tax base and fund their failing pension plans.

Our area is so overpopulated that these buses have become an annoyance, just yesterday a Tesla bus taking employees as far as Stockton hit and killed a sheriff's deputy driving a little Volkswagen beetle:

East Bay Times said:
The driver of the bus, which was driving 51 Tesla employees back home from the company’s Fremont plant to Stockton, told investigators he did not see the car because the sun was in his eyes, California Highway Patrol Officer Derek Reed said.²






¹ http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...ng-up-more-than-24-hours-after-blaze-started/

² http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/05...-collision-involving-tour-bus-near-livermore/
 
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