Weybosset Fire

[AriPVD]

The corner of Westminster and Union in the Peerless building is designed to be a restaurant. All equipment (hood system, etc) will be installed once we have a signed tenant. The Urban Kitchen/Spoodles location is a full service restaurant, ready to go!

[basachs]

I hope that American Apparel can find a new home soon if their building really needs to come down. Hopefully they don't just give up and decide to take one of the spots in the mall.

Any chance we will see DownCity go into the Peerless? I can't imagine they will want to wait for new construction to re-open.

If the city does not do anything to help them relocate, I would not blame them for taking a spot in the mall or even on Thayer. I 'd love for them to continue being in that area though. They have a pretty good corporate philosophy and I hope someone will be talking to them about sticking around downcity.

[Cotuit]

Cause of fire probed. Businesses looking to relocate after loss. [ProJo.com]

[provid]

I think spoodles or peerless would be DownCity's best bet. They want to still attact the crowd from PAC im sure.

[Jerry2]

It's not just the historical loss that bothers me. Will this tragedy spur legislators to even further toughen their fire and sprinkler codes? Even moreso than after the Station fire? It unintentionally creates more bureaucratic red tape to establish a business.

[jencoleslaw]

i am worried more about how it is that the fire chief couldn't get into the office of the inspector who had previously worked on this project because he was off yesterday. How is it that any one was off yesterday after this fire?!

[runawayjim]

i am worried more about how it is that the fire chief couldn't get into the office of the inspector who had previously worked on this project because he was off yesterday. How is it that any one was off yesterday after this fire?!

if they have more than one fire inspector, i'm sure that they can take time off... especially if they guy took the day off and was away on vacation or something.

i am curious why the chief couldn't just unlock the door, i'm sure he's got access to all the keys.

[Cotuit]

How is it that any one was off yesterday after this fire?!

Fires happen everyday, this was a big one, but people still get time off. There was nothing the inspector could do Monday or yesterday.

i am curious why the chief couldn't just unlock the door, i'm sure he's got access to all the keys.

The fire department is like any other office. People have keys to various things, you buy a new file cabinet, not everyone gets a key. Even if the chief had a key to his office (which I'm sure someone does) or the file cabinet the reports are locked in, the fire chief needs to know the filing system. It's best for the chief to wait until the inspector gets back, it's not the chief's place to interpret the records kept by the inspector. I'm sure whenever the inspector gets back from his or her time off, they will have a very lengthy meeting with the chief.

At this point, the fire department's primary concern is that all the hot spots are extinguished and ensuring that neighbouring buildings can be reoccupied. Then once possible, getting in the building to determine the cause of the fire. The inspection reports, or lack there of are not what is most important right now.

[Cotuit]

Also, Chief Costa is not "the" Chief. There are a number of chiefs and probably more than one responded to this fire. Chief Costa has taken the lead on this fire. I know that he's been on scene almost constantly all week, so he hasn't had time to report to the station to check inspection records.

[basachs]

Any idea why the Projo refuses to acknowledge the fact that there was third business affected, the tattoo parlor? In today's article it refers to two main tenants, Downcity and the Ballet studio..

Slanted reporting? The editor-in-chief got drunk and had a tattoo of Ida Tarbell put on his butt?

[runawayjim]

Any idea why the Projo refuses to acknowledge the fact that there was third business affected, the tattoo parlor? In today's article it refers to two main tenants, Downcity and the Ballet studio..

Slanted reporting? The editor-in-chief got drunk and had a tattoo of Ida Tarbell put on his butt?

any idea why the projo does a lot of things it does?

[KRC]

It's not just the historical loss that bothers me. Will this tragedy spur legislators to even further toughen their fire and sprinkler codes? Even moreso than after the Station fire? It unintentionally creates more bureaucratic red tape to establish a business.

What's the solution then? Is there another way?

[runawayjim]

What's the solution then? Is there another way?

yes. don't make the fire code stricter, but actually enforce it more strictly. if this was done prior to 2003, the station would not have caught fire or been as bad as it was. the sound proofing they used did not meet code, but the fire marshall told them they were fine. that's the problem. they need to simply enforce the code more strictly rather than allow things like that to happen.

[basachs]

any idea why the projo does a lot of things it does?

No I dont, thats why I posted.

But seriously, its just annoying not to see anything on it. Hell they mentioned the Safari, and it is not even in business anymore.

Its three businesses that are out, with a national retailer going to be the fourth. In a city that is on the mend and cannot exactly afford to lose four places.

[KRC]

yes. don't make the fire code stricter, but actually enforce it more strictly. if this was done prior to 2003, the station would not have caught fire or been as bad as it was. the sound proofing they used did not meet code, but the fire marshall told them they were fine. that's the problem. they need to simply enforce the code more strictly rather than allow things like that to happen.

Something as important like the fire code should be a living document not a commandment etched in stone. Advancements in building and building safety technology must always be revisited. Better enforcement is certainly a requirement and you hit the nail on the head with that one. However, I submit that's not enough all by itself. It inherently goes stale if not revisited. I think regular review and revision is also required.

[runawayjim]

Something as important like the fire code should be a living document not a commandment etched in stone. Advancements in building and building safety technology must always be revisited. Better enforcement is certainly a requirement and you hit the nail on the head with that one. However, I submit that's not enough all by itself. It inherently goes stale if not revisited. I think regular review and revision is also required.

that's what i meant by better enforcement... you can't just inspect a place once, you need to do it on a somewhat regular and random basis. personally, i think it's amazing that a piece of food caught fire and caused the building to burn down. i've worked in restaurants, food catches fire all the time. i've never seen it catch fire and ignite the building.

i think in addition to meeting fire code, anyone working in a kitchen should be trained to know how to deal with certain types of fire so they can react more quickly to something like that.

[BJE]

A few comments on building codes, fire codes, etc.

The central concept is to preserve human life in a fire, not neccessarily to preserve a structure or its contents from fire. Fire codes are often referred to as "life safety" codes. Ideally, a code-compliant building will compartmentalize a fire, to prevent it from spreading, and provide for egress paths (corridors, stair towers, etc.) that are safer than the building at large, to safely accommodate a mass exiting of the building occupants in a reasonable amount of time. Sprinklers and other fire suppressions systems, under the code, allow for buildings to be quite a bit larger than non-fire-suppressed buildings, on the concept that they keep buildings safe to occupy, and structurally sound, longer during a fire event. But even then, the idea is to give you enough time to get out, not to neccessarily save the building itself.

As far as training kitchen staff to respond in a fire, there are two schools of thought. One is two place extiguishers liberally, to potentially allow for fast response to a fire before it becomes life-threatening. But by far the more common school of thought is that occupants should not fight fires, they should GET OUT as fast as possible and leave the fire fighting to fire fighters. Again, the priority is saving lives, not saving the building.

And the codes are only as good the enforcement (by officials AND owners), as been mentioned already. The codes are already quite strict, and empirically very effective at saving lives. In this case, if the fire appeared visibly extinguished but had "gotten into the walls," then clearly there was a failure to have required, properly-built fire-rated construction somewhere. One possibility (out of many)...mechanical penetrations through fire assemblies are often not properly fire sealed, especially in historic buildings that have seen multiple renovations, some possibly without the guidance of a design professional and / or even the knowledge of the code official(s) that work has even being done!

BJE

[filosofia]

The central concept is to preserve human life in a fire, not neccessarily to preserve a structure or its contents from fire. Fire codes are often referred to as "life safety" codes.

Not historically. Fire codes came in two waves. The first wave, the one that influenced building design, cared only about the property itself.

That first wave of fire protection technology came in about the 1840s, in response to devastating warehouse and textile mill fires. Innovation was driven by mill owners who wanted to preserve their investment. The big manufacturers' mutual insurance companies codified and enforced these tactics -- not to save life but to minimize their losses. The earliest American version of fire-resistant construction is the slow-burning timber-frame mill, or Type IV construction in modern terms. The big beams and columns, loose attachment to the walls, and sprinkler systems were designed to make fire-fighting safer and more practical, and to minimize damage in the event of a collapse. These measures are unrelated to life safety. The only compartmentalization was mesh on the windows, to prevent auto-exposure. Fire protection depended on active fire-fighting by mill workers.

The first slow-burning mill sits somewhere in Rhode Island. I forget where. (Possibly it burned; slow-burning construction goes up fast when the wood is oil-soaked and the sprinklers are turned off.) I'm working here from memory, and I'm in the middle of a thesis, so more detailed citations would have to wait.

Terra-cotta fireproofing and eventual cladding of steel structural members comes out of the same impulse -- to make sure that the building doesn't fall down even after hours. That's a good bit more time than a simple evacuation requires.

The second wave comes around 1900, with the big series of deadly fires in high rise buildings. This one is concerned mainly with life safety, and it addresses the problems that earlier insurance-industry codes ignored. This is when one sees government measures requiring fire escapes, mandating that doors remain unlocked, and otherwise providing for safe egress. Modern-day fire codes combine these two thrusts.

As far as training kitchen staff to respond in a fire, there are two schools of thought. One is two place extiguishers liberally, to potentially allow for fast response to a fire before it becomes life-threatening. But by far the more common school of thought is that occupants should not fight fires, they should GET OUT as fast as possible and leave the fire fighting to fire fighters. Again, the priority is saving lives, not saving the building.

And then there's the provision of large CO2 dump systems, or other ways of flooding a space from outside. Leave space - trip CO2 flood - keep going out the door. Systems installed and maintained at vast expense, of course.

[brick]

This sounds most like a construction problem and not a training or suppression system problem. The initial fire seemed to be out pretty quickly, but in the time it was burning, the draft of the building had sucked it into the walls where there is plenty of free oxygen hanging around to keep it burning.

[Liamlunchtray]

Any idea why the Projo refuses to acknowledge the fact that there was third business affected, the tattoo parlor? In today's article it refers to two main tenants, Downcity and the Ballet studio..

Slanted reporting? The editor-in-chief got drunk and had a tattoo of Ida Tarbell put on his butt?

It was actually a body piercing place and not a tattoo shop, but its very true - they have been completely ignored. the only news source that really acknowledged them was Channel 10 who mentioned them a few times and interviewed Joe the owner on air. The poor guy looses his entire business and they wont even acknowledge that he exists.

[basachs]

You are right of course, mixed it up in my mind.

Makes my ida tarbell comment null and void. oh well.

Still, it really irritates me.

[Cotuit]

Preservationists questioning quick demolition of building. The building that housed Downcity Food and Cocktails was built before the Civil War. It had served as the Second Universalist Church and the state's first teaching school. [ProJo.com]

Again, no mention of Evolution. Though if you didn't know it was there before, you wouldn't know it had been there now, but it's still sloppy reporting.

[Liamlunchtray]

Preservationists questioning quick demolition of building. The building that housed Downcity Food and Cocktails was built before the Civil War. It had served as the Second Universalist Church and the state's first teaching school. [ProJo.com]

Again, no mention of Evolution. Though if you didn't know it was there before, you wouldn't know it had been there now, but it's still sloppy reporting.

I just emailed Projo asking why they are ignoring them. If I dont get a response I will ask my neighbor who is a reporter there. Also - word on the street is that the American Apparel bldg is not coming down.

[yossarian]

I just emailed Projo asking why they are ignoring them. If I dont get a response I will ask my neighbor who is a reporter there. Also - word on the street is that the American Apparel bldg is not coming down.

Since this is turning into a press criticsim topic. How about the Projo's failure to idenify Gordon Fox's political position? Or for that matter who this business partner is?

Since this is turning into a press criticsim topic. How about the Projo's failure to idenify Gordon Fox's political position? Or for that matter who this business partner is?

Somebody read my mind, article now notes that he is house majority leader.

[Liamlunchtray]

I just emailed Projo asking why they are ignoring them. If I dont get a response I will ask my neighbor who is a reporter there. Also - word on the street is that the American Apparel bldg is not coming down.

I got a response from Cathleen Crowley at the Journal. She apologized for the oversight and asked for Evolution's contact info.