November 30, 2007
The community’s response to 2 deadly fires in one year
in today’s RTD: “…residents and activists here yesterday criticized public officials for not enforcing and toughening the city’s building codes. ‘They have not promulgated new codes’ after a similar house fire in January less than a mile away killed three children, said Linas Kojelis, a community activist. …After that fire Jan. 12 in the 400 block of South Harrison Street, more than 100 residents asked the Petersburg city government to help families who don’t have utilities and to enforce and toughen property codes. Kojelis said a group of residents also gave the City Council a list of 27 questions they had related to housing safety. ‘The city failed to respond,’ Kojelis said. The city added some building inspectors, but residents say they don’t think that’s enough to keep the city’s old houses safe. ‘This week’s blaze at 684 Pegram St. revived their concerns,’ Kojelis said.”
Tangentially, here is how Richmond is dealing with the owner of 100’s of vacant properties, and what has recently come of same. (This is not too tangential though, as the referenced property owner has a nontrivial number of properties in Petersburg per the assessor records.)
Are we noticing a pattern here people?
It seems to me a heavy educational program on fire safety needs to get going in this section of the city.
Where’s the fire department on this?
Interestingly, the RTD has a separate article today that notes January’s fire inspired Henrico’s “Christmas Mothers” to partner with Henrico’s fire dept. to help the low-imcome families they serve sign up for the free alarm install/check program.
The city is not to be blamed completely for this tragedy. Inspectors visited in August. They did what they were supposed to do. I am saddened at the loss of innocent lives. The residents of the 600 block of Pegram Street won’t say it publicly, but privately there were concerns about how this family lived.
IMO, certainly fires don’t all boil down to code violations not being addressed… e.g., recent fires in Prince George were started accidently (one by a Christmas tree and one by someone refilling a kerosene heater), and most of us have probably smoked the kitchen at some point in our lives by forgetting that we were cooking some dish or another. But the lack of code enforcement probably doesn’t help. (Of course, I suspect that the current staff are as busy as can be with all that’s on their plate.) Nor does the lack of a well-developed fire safety outreach program like the one implemented in Henrico. (I will note that I have repeatedly requested that the fire dept forward a short/sweet statement about the free fire alarm & install program, so that the community can help work with local churches and such to get the word out to those who are unlikely to learn about this program via the P-I or this blog, and to date I have yet to receive any such information.)
BTW - here’s a copy of the 27 questions that concerned citizens put to the city after the January fire — it bears mentioning to those that don’t know otherwise that several things have changed since these questions were drafted. For example, Petersburg now has a fire chief and a police chief, and a spot blight ordinance was approved by council, and I believe also the way has been cleared to establish a rental inspection program, but I’ve not heard any word on the status of same in some time.
I found the earlier link re: the council meeting in which changes to the city code re: code compliance, spot blight, rental inspection, etc. were discussed.