SAN FRANCISCO — The illegally occupied Oakland warehouse where dozens of partygoers perished in a blaze does not appear in a database fire inspectors use to schedule inspections and may never have been checked for fire hazards, a firefighter with knowledge of the situation told The Associated Press on Thursday.
Oakland fire officials are supposed to annually inspect commercial buildings for fire safety, with only single-family homes and duplexes exempted. Officials typically pull addresses from a database to request the yearly checks, said the firefighter, who feared retribution for disclosing the information and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
“Commercial inspections are conducted as time permits during a fire station’s 24-hour shift and are not routinely scheduled on an appointment basis,” the city’s website says.
There’s a fire station right around the corner from the warehouse.
The victims, ranging in age from 17 to 61, died while attending a $10-a-head dance party at the warehouse. On the campus of the University of California at Berkeley on Thursday, family members and friends hugged one another and wept as they spoke of two students, two recent graduates and a campus volunteer who died in the blaze.
“There’s a part of our heart that’s missing today,” Michael Morris, father of 21-year-old victim Jennifer Morris, a musician and media studies major who died along with her roommate, Vanessa Plotkin, 21.
The fire department and Mayor Libby Schaaf each said Thursday they could not yet say when – or if – a fire inspector examined the warehouse.
Fire department spokeswoman Rebecca Kozak said Thursday she didn’t know whether the warehouse’s address was in the database of buildings to be checked.
Erica Terry Derryck, Schaaf’s spokeswoman, said the mayor’s office was putting together “what contact all city agencies have had with this property.”
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