Violations for years at building in fatal fire
San Francisco fire inspectors found safety violations for years — missing fire extinguishers, blocked fire escapes, inoperable smoke alarms and locked exits — at the building at 22nd and Mission streets that burned last month, killing one man and leaving dozens of low-income residents homeless, The Chronicle has learned.
The building also had no fire alarm or sprinkler system because state and local laws don’t require those protections for older buildings with more than 16 apartments. And though the building had a required smoke alarm that could have alerted tenants to the fire, it never sounded. Residents told The Chronicle that someone disabled it after repeated false alarms.
The building passed its last fire inspection in August — but that was apparently because of sloppy documentation by the
Fire Department, officials said.
In fact, a door leading to a roof escape was padlocked in violation of the fire code, and fire officials knew about it for three years. And when fire tore through the building on Jan. 28, the door was still locked, fire officials acknowledged Friday. A 2011 inspection also found fire escape ladders that did not descend properly. No repairs have been documented.
Residents faced other safety impediments on the night of the fire, and many learned they were in danger only after firefighters arrived and hallways were already filled with smoke and flames. When they turned to the fire escapes, they couldn’t always get them to lower properly.
In all, 12 people were rescued from the burning building, including seven from fire escapes. Five residents were injured.
Fire officials acknowledged Friday that their inspectors have been lax in documenting whether building owners repair violations. Such practices — and the lack of fire alarms and sprinklers — raise serious questions about San Francisco’s ability to monitor and enforce fire safety in large, old apartment buildings.
Fire code from early 1900s
Hawk Lou, whose family has owned the building since 1990, declined to answer questions on the advice of his lawyer and insurance adjuster.
“All I can say is everything is inspected and up to code,” said Lou, who in 2007 assumed full ownership of the building of 18 apartments, a dozen offices, 15 ground-floor restaurants and shops, and numerous mailing addresses.
California began requiring sprinklers on new buildings in 1989. New buildings must also have sophisticated fire alarm systems loud enough to awaken sleeping people in every apartment. State and local fire officials weren’t sure when that law was passed, but said older buildings need only comply with whatever code was in place when they were built. The three-story building at 22nd and Mission dates from 1907 or 1910, depending on the record.
“They are not required to have a fire alarm,” said Michie Wong, the city’s fire marshal. “That’s an issue that San Fran- cisco is going to have to take a look at.”
David Campos, a city supervisor who is drafting an ordinance to try to improve the city’s enforcement of fire-prevention laws, said he had no idea that fire alarms weren’t required in older buildings.
“I knew about the sprinklers, but the fact that no fire alarm is required is news to me,” he said. “That’s pretty significant.”
Bell alarm said to be disabled
By contrast, the building did have a simple bell alarm apparently attached to a central smoke alarm. The city began requiring building owners in the 1980s to install that type of alarm with smoke detectors placed 30 feet apart in common areas, Wong said.
But tenants in the doomed building said someone disabled that bell alarm about four months ago after a false alarm forced residents to flee the building.
“They must have pulled the handle down and never put it back up,” said Humberto Lopez, who lived in Apartment 304 with his wife, Eugenia Aldana, for 35 years.
Other residents also remembered hearing the alarm clang one day last fall and said they ran panic-stricken into the street — only to learn there was no emergency. Some said that such false alarms happened several times, prompting some fed-up tenants to quietly disable it.
Disabling the alarm would be a crime, Wong said. If someone did that, it proved a deadly decision when combined with other fire-safety problems at the building — including no record of whether the owner ever installed a smoke alarm in every apartment as required. Resident Elvis Rivera said he painted each apartment but never saw smoke alarms inside. (Fire and building inspectors may not enter apartments without permission.)
Rivera’s roommate, 40-yearold Mauricio Orellana, died in the fire. Orellana was in his room in Apartment 300 wearing his headphones, said Rivera, whose hands are still bandaged from the burns he suffered helping two others out of his window to safety. Rivera realized the building was burning only when his neighbor, Jorge Flores, knocked frantically at his door, screaming, “Open up! I’m burning!” Rivera helped Flores and a second roommate, Milagro Rodriguez, out of the building through his window. Rivera’s wife, Yanira Hernandez, was able to get out of the window herself.
But they ran into trouble: “The fire escape didn’t work,” Rivera said, echoing the complaint of other residents. “The firefighters had to get us down.”
Difficulty with fire escapes
Wong, the fire marshal, said news photos show that two of the four fire escapes succeeded in descending to the street. She was unsure about a third and said the fourth did not descend, possibly because no one tried to use it. The third and fourth fire escapes were above store awnings and required users to trigger a mechanism to drop their ladders through a “trap door” in the awnings.
Getting any fire escape to drop to the sidewalk “is like trying to open a door in the dark,” Wong said. “You’re not familiar with the mechanism, and you’re under duress.” Strength isn’t necessarily required, said Wong, who tried it once about 20 years ago. “You just have to know how to operate it.”
Fire victims are supposed to dash down a fire escape to a certain point, then manually release the final section of stairs by shifting a galvanized steel lever out of its casing to let the steps — which are on a spindle — unroll to the sidewalk. If the owner doesn’t lubricate the lever every year as required, that can be tough, Wong said.
The Department of Building Inspection, not the Fire Department, is supposed to ensure that fire escapes work properly and their ladders can drop to street level as required. But building inspectors say they are overworked and behind in routine safety inspections. Such checks are scheduled every three to four years. The last one at the three-story building at 22nd and Mission streets was in 2010.
“Because of all the construction activity — the building boom — that’s been going on for a couple of years, I’m told our inspectors haven’t got the ability to get there,” said Bill Strawn, spokesman for the Department of Building Inspection. “They’ve been busy with other inspections.”
Meanwhile, the Fire Department performs routine safety checks once a year. In August, an inspector found nothing wrong.
But a Chronicle examination of Fire Department inspection records dating to 2009 shows repeated fire hazards — and no clear evidence that violations were ever fixed. In addition to exits frequently blocked by debris, inspectors found fire extinguishers overdue for servicing or expired in 2009, 2011 and 2012. Fire extinguishers were missing altogether in 2010 and 2013, the same year the second-floor alarm was found to have no power. The door leading to the rooftop was padlocked in 2011, when inspectors also found that fire escape ladders failed to reach the ground.
“There does seem to be a lapse in our tracking,” Wong said, citing overworked fire inspectors. “The lack of documentation for this building is now evident.” Wong said she will instruct inspectors to document repairs on all buildings from now on.
‘Engulfed in fire and smoke’
Lopez, from Apartment 304, said the building’s lack of safety features created terror on the night of the fire. He and his wife, Aldana, had no idea their building was on fire until after firefighters arrived with sirens blaring, he said.
“I picked up my wife and put her on the fire escape — but the steps wouldn’t go down,” he said. “My wife was screaming. She was hysterical, and I was scared. We were engulfed in fire and smoke.”
Ultimately, firefighters plucked the couple off the burning building to safety.
In all, 58 residents were displaced. Twenty are still looking for a home.