Nov. 7—A commercial structure at an agriculture manufacturing company that burned to the ground in mid-October in south Fresno was one of nearly 5,000 facilities that are overdue for a fire prevention inspection in the city, The Fresno Bee has learned.
The structure near Highway 99 caught on fire on Oct. 17 — the same day firefighters battled another large blaze that left a women's rehabilitation facility totally destroyed.
The commercial structure was on a two-year inspection cycle, and was last inspected on Dec. 19. 2018. It was due for another inspection in November or December of 2020. The rehabilitation facility was not in the Fresno Fire Department's system of inspectable facilities.
"We were supposed to go out there," Billy Alcorn, deputy chief at the Fresno Fire Department overseeing the fire prevention and technical services division, said. "That is one that we were behind on due to COVID restraints."
The COVID-19 pandemic further exacerbated a backlog of fire prevention inspections at the Fresno Fire Department that spans across several years. A total of 4,732 inspections have not been completed in line with National Fire Protection Association recommendations, according to data requested by The Bee. Those facilities have not been inspected in four years or more.
Those buildings are supposed to be inspected every two or three years, depending on the facilities' classification for risk, Alcorn said. Aside from COVID, other factors played a role in the department falling behind on inspections, such as staffing levels in the fire prevention division.
Officials told The Bee in October they hope to begin to tackle the backlog with new positions added to the inspection division. They also say state-mandated inspections, which are separate and include places like hotels, have been completed on time.
The cause of the fire at the commercial structure has been listed as "undetermined," Alcorn said. When there's so much fire damage, it's difficult to pinpoint what caused the fire.
Fire prevention inspections, for the most part, look at whether fire prevention systems are working and check for hazards and safety violations, Alcorn said. Another key aspect is education on fire prevention passed along to the owners.
But if, for example, an electrical problem causes a fire, that's not something that a fire prevention inspection could have averted.
Generally, fire prevention inspections are effective at staving off fires, said Curt Floyd, first responder technical lead at the National Fire Protection Association.
"We've seen over the years, that in a community that has invested, funds resources into fire prevention, we see a decrease in the amount of fires," Floyd told The Bee.
Inspections fall behind
Over the last two decades, the number of staff in the Fresno fire prevention division has fluctuated. In the early 2000s, the division had nine employees, but the number slowly increased over the years to a total of 20 in 2010, data shows.
But after 2011, the number of staff went down again to as low as 12 in 2016. The fiscal year 2022 budget allocated funds to add six new positions to the division, bringing the total to 25 staff.
The division got "down-staffed," but it's slowly building back up, Alcorn said.
Officials carried out an internal audit, looking at inspections the division has been unable to complete. But officials say they hope the recent hires — one prevention fire engineer, four inspectors and one senior inspector — will help them get moving on the backlog.
"We sat down recently to look at how we are going to kind of reshape the division, and roll our inspection program back out again," Alcorn said. "There are a handful of inspections that just fell off."
The backlog grew when inspections outside of those that are mandated by the state were put on hold in April 2020 due to businesses closing, and to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
"We have seen several fire departments already struggling with staffing shortages now faced with even more troubles due to the impacts of the COVID pandemic," Floyd said. "In these cases, department administrations are forced to take action to prioritize, or triage efforts to be able continue response to life-threatening emergencies."
Officials in Fresno have prioritized inspections mandated by the state that have to be completed annually or biannually, said Leslie Forshey, supervising fire prevention inspector with the Fresno Fire Department.
But all other inspections fell behind.
Inspections that are not mandated by the state fall on each fire department's discretion, and must be completed based on a risk assessment for the type of facility and risk for the occupants. These are the 4,732 inspections that slipped behind.
"It is of concern, naturally," Floyd said of the backlog.
Alcorn said the new hires will help provide a "really good snapshot in about 12 months" as to where the department is with those inspections.
"We are going to be in a much better position, but are we going to miss a couple here and there? I think I'll be lying if we said we weren't," he said.
Backlog breakdown
In early November, Alcorn said 300 of the 4,732 inspections had been assigned to fire inspectors, but he wasn't able to determine how many had been completed. Starting on Jan. 1, 2022, any remaining inspections will be "pushed out to the entire organization to make sure we complete those."
The bulk — or 3,810 — of the inspections backlog involve offices and other professional-type settings, data shows. That is followed by 331 inspections that involve storage facilities, which are classified as a "moderate hazard," and 178 involve stores open to the public.
Another 154 involve places of worship, recreation or amusement, while 107 involve places for food and drink consumption, and 104 involve "moderate hazard" factory or industrial facilities.
But inspections have also not been completed in indoor sporting facilities, buildings and structures that contain "materials that pose a deflagration hazard or a hazard from accelerated burning," as well as in facilities that contain materials that "readily support combustion or that pose a physical hazard," according to a breakdown of the type of facilities. Inspections on facilities that house bedridden people who are not capable of exiting on their own in the event of a fire are also part of the backlog. However, inspections for these types of facilities don't make up a large number in the buildup of inspections that haven't been completed, data shows.
Justin Beal, a fire prevention engineer with the Fresno Fire Department, said there is a nationally recognized standard that assesses the risk posed by the various types of facilities and the risk to the people occupying them.
For example, he said, the risk is going to be lower for a bank where the building is only open during the day, and occupants are awake and doing business transactions. But the risk increases for a nightclub where the venue is dark, there's loud music and people are consuming alcohol.
Officials say they continued to carry out inspections in facilities of higher risk as often as possible.
"The lower-hazard, lower-occupant risk are the ones that we cycled down so that we would get to them when staffing caught up or call volumes went down," Beal told The Bee.
Unfortunately, he said, the call volume continues to go up. And development continues to increase, too, and inspectors also inspect new construction sites.
Floyd said all inspections are important, but when it comes to fire prevention, "it's difficult because there is not an emergency right now."
"But if we can put enough money into preventing the fires from starting in the first place, we wouldn't have to put so much into, or be so concerned about the actual emergency calls because there wouldn't be as many, if we were preventing them," he said.
18 months to get an inspector fully-trained
The recently added staff will help the fire prevention division get back on a "rotation that is consistent" with national standards, Beal said.
But Forshey said another challenge is training. At least three inspectors in the fire prevention division have been employed for under a year, while another one has only been on the job for a few months, and they are still going through training. That's in addition to the six new hires.
"It takes about 18 months to have an inspector fully trained," she told The Bee. "We have the new ones that have just come on, but it's going to take about 18 months to get them fully trained."
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