Final Sofa Super Store fire report urges sprinklers

A federal agency's final report on the deadly Sofa Super Store blaze recommends stronger building codes to require sprinklers and additional research on how fire spreads on upholstered furniture.

The Gaithersburg, Md.-based National Institute of Standards and Technology's two-volume study of the June 18, 2007, fire contains minor revisions to the draft report the agency unveiled in October. Those revisions did not alter the study team's findings concerning the blaze that killed nine Charleston firefighters, NIST spokesman Michael Newman said.

A key finding was that sprinklers likely would have contained the 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 through the store, trapping the doomed firefighters inside, the study found.

The study did not pinpoint what started the blaze, though other investigators have said they suspect that a carelessly discarded cigarette was to blame.

Neither city officials nor the store's legal team offered comment Wednesday on the NIST report.

The NIST probe was the last major study of the blaze, the largest single loss of firefighters in the country since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Previous reports faulted the store's practices and the Charleston Fire Department's training, tactics and leadership.

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

Among other things, the NIST study 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 how ventilating buildings can affect the spread of fire on furniture.

The study also recommended that communities train firefighters in the science of fire behavior and how venting structures can impact a blaze.