Sofa Super Store: NIOSH lists 43 points for prevention

The final National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report on Charleston's Sofa Super Store fire lays out 43 recommendations for preventing such a tragedy from happening again, from better equipment and training to tougher building codes.

Like previous city and federal reports, the NIOSH report details the circumstances of the deadly blaze, which killed nine city firefighters, but the report assesses no blame.

Poor incident command, unreliable radio communications, air tanks that weren't full, inadequate water supplies, hoses that were too small, code violations and a lack of fire sprinklers were all cited as contributing to the terrible outcome.

The nine men were among city and St. Andrews firefighters who responded on June 18, 2007, to what was initially thought to be a trash fire at the sofa store and warehouse on Savannah Highway.

Fueled by cans of solvent and highly flammable furniture, the fire quickly got out of control. The nine who died all ran out of air while inside the smoke-filled warehouse, the NIOSH report said, though thermal injuries also were cited as a cause of death.

The recommendations, the lessons learned from the NIOSH investigation, mirror a report released nine months ago by a team of fire service professionals hired by Charleston, and many of the suggested changes have already been made.

A draft of the NIOSH report was released last spring, but it did not include the recommendations in the final report.

"There are no surprises," said Fire Chief Thomas Carr. "There are no revelations that were not brought out by the Routley report."

Former Shreveport, La., Fire Chief Gordon Routley headed the panel of consultants that conducted the city-sponsored probe. He said Thursday afternoon that he was still reviewing the NIOSH report but had found no significant differences.

"We both looked at the same situation, and in fact we exchanged information several times," Routley said. "It's probably just a new telling of the same story."

The Routley report was blunt in its assessment.

"The Charleston Fire Department was inadequately staffed, inadequately trained, insufficiently equipped, and organizationally unprepared to conduct an operation of this complexity in a large commercial occupancy," the report said.

That report called for sweeping changes in command and control procedures, expensive purchases of new equipment, and new training procedures; steps the city has been taking since the report came out.

Many of those initiatives also address the similar recommendations of the NIOSH report.

"Most of the recommendations are in the process of being addressed by the Fire Department," Carr said. "This report, most importantly, continues the healing process for this department and this community."

Some recommendations, such as having one central dispatch center for area fire departments, are still under study.

"It certainly appears to be where we need to go, as far as fire dispatch," Carr said.

Other recommendations, such as requiring sprinklers in more commercial buildings, would require changes in state law that have previously been rejected by the Legislature.

Carr was hired by Charleston in October from a much larger department in Maryland. Former Chief Rusty Thomas retired shortly after the Routley report was released.

In June, a report from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives concluded that the Sofa Super Store fire probably began after someone tossed a lit cigarette near trash and discarded furniture.