Final Sofa Super Store fire report released

The final report on 2007’s Sofa Super Store fire has been released by a federal agency that used computer simulations to determine how the blaze spread through the massive furniture outlet, killing nine Charleston firefighters.

The Gaithersburg, Md.-based National Institute of Standards and Technology said its final report was clarified and strengthened by comments agency officials received during an October visit to Charleston to review its draft findings. The revisions did not alter the study team’s main findings.

A key finding was that sprinklers likely would have contained the June 18, 2007 fire to the store’s loading dock and prevented it from spreading into the sprawling Savannah Highway showroom, where it became an inferno.

Computer models also showed the blaze was hungry for oxygen and moving slowly until firefighters smashed the front showroom windows to vent smoke. Fresh air poured into the store, igniting combustible gases swirling just below the drop ceiling like a ticking time bomb.

The blaze then tore rapidly and dramatically through the store, trapping the doomed firefighters inside, the study found.

The windows were broken about 24 minutes after firefighters arrived at the store and four minutes after a firefighter radioed a mayday call for help.

The NIST probe was the last major study of the blaze, the largest single loss of firefighters in the country since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Previous reports found fault with the store’s practices and the Charleston Fire Department’s training, tactics and leadership.

The city has spent more than $8 million on improvements to its fire department since that time.

Based on its findings, the NIST study team made 11 recommendations for enhancing building, occupant and firefighter safety nationwide. In particular, the team urged state and local communities to adopt and strictly adhere to national model building and fire safety codes.

If those model codes had been in place and rigorously followed in Charleston in 2007, the study authors said, the conditions that led to the fire’s rapid spread likely would have been prevented.

Specifically, the NIST report calls for national building and fire codes to require sprinklers for all new commercial retail furniture stores regardless of size, and for existing retail furniture stores with any single display area of greater than 2,000 square feet.

Other recommendations include adopting codes that cover buildings with high fuel loads such as furniture, ensuring proper fire inspections and building plan examinations, and encouraging research on ventilating buildings can affect the spread of fire on furniture.