In a way, the timing of Friday's fire could not have been worse. In a way, it could not have been better.
The fire destroyed a student apartment building in just a half-hour before racing to destroy or damage 28 other buildings.
With just the wooden framing and roof in place, the fire came at the worst possible point in the months-long construction process, experts agree.
But the fire started at lunch, and most of the about 60 people working on the building were outside eating.
"That is a good thing. They all got out. If they had been in there, I don't know that they would have all gotten out," said Bill Paulette, president of KBS, the general contractor for the building planned for Virginia Commonwealth University students. "Thank God nobody was hurt."
Construction experts say that if the work had been a little further along, with a sprinkler system and sheetrock walls in place, the fire could have easily been limited. They said the building would have been perfectly safe for students to live in if it had been completed.
City authorities were still investigating the cause of the blaze yesterday.
"It happened to hit at the stage of con- struction when it was kind of the most vulnerable," said Mark Strickler, the city's director of community development. "It was extremely unfortunate timing."
Al Rabil, who set up the RAMZ LLC partnership that is developing the student apartments at 933 W. Broad St., said: "We had a wood frame and [high] winds; that's a good formula for a fire to go quickly."
And it did. The fire roared across West Broad and eventually destroyed or damaged buildings on either side of the street. Chunks of burning insulation were carried for miles across Richmond and beyond.
The construction workers knew it was time to flee when they heard five blasts from an air horn.
While most were outside the building, some had to scramble down from the roof through stairwells that survived the fire.
Meanwhile, other workers were desperately trying to put out the blaze with fire extinguishers. One blew the air horn to warn the others. Another called 911.
"It was roaring so bad they could not stop it," said Paulette. "I don't know why it burned so fast. I just don't know."
KBS had built all five floors and the roof and was preparing the building's sprinkler system and unloading sheetrock before the fire hit. The roof partly consisted of wooden trusses, plywood and insulation. The workers had not yet installed insulation in the walls.
Eyewitnesses said the fire started in a trash bin connected by a chute to the building. Paulette said he could not confirm that information.
"There is a backhoe inside that building down there that was on the ground that didn't even get damaged," he said. "There wasn't much heat down on the ground. It was all up above.
"The wind was blowing. And the insulation that was in the roof . . . somehow caught on fire. And it looks like the wind carried that."
Paulette and Rabil said the sprinkler system had been "roughed in" and was set to be up and running within a week.
"That's pretty close to the most vulnerable" a building can be to fire, said Yvan Beliveau, chairman of Virginia Tech's department of building construction. The exposed wood burns easily and, at that stage of construction, there can be sparks from soldering irons used to assemble piping, he said. Temporary wiring and lighting can be fire risks as well.
Virginia's building code allows wooden framing in apartment buildings in many circumstances, and it spells out the factors to be considered in determining when and where a particular design and particular materials are safe, he said.
"Wood framing versus masonry or steel framing . . . I really don't think it's inherently more dangerous," said John McGrann, a building-code expert with the Baskervill architectural firm. "The thing that seems to be the cause of the most loss of life would be smoke generated by interior furnishings."
What matters most in the building is an alarm system and how it is designed to slow the spread of fire, whether with sprinklers or fire-resistant material such as gypsum board and other measures, he said.
"This kind of stick construction is pretty standard now for commercial apartments up to four stories," said Paul W. Timmreck, VCU's senior vice president for finance and administration. The building has four stories of living space above a steel-framed ground floor. "Absolutely, it is safe."
The university planned to lease the building from RAMZ for $658,000 a year over five years. The building, estimated to cost $10 million, is to include 88 apartments for 172 students and stores on the ground floor.
VCU's associate vice president for facilities, Brian Ohlinger , a retired colonel for the Army Corps of Engineers, said city building officials had reviewed the plans to be sure the structure complied with the code.
"We had the job in good shape, it was going down pretty good, and everything was in compliance," said Brad Talley, owner of Masonomics, the masonry subcontractor for the project, who has a crew of 12 working on the project.
Asked if he felt the building would be safe for students to live in, Paulette said, "We would have had a sprinkler system in that building completed. . . . And we would have sheetrock on the walls, and the wood would not have been so exposed. And that building would have met the code when we finished."
KBS might have an estimate for the cost of the damage next week, Paulette said. A structural engineer hired by KBS is trying to determine if and how much of the materials on the site can be reused. Paulette said RAMZ and KBS plan to rebuild.
Both companies have insurance policies that Paulette hopes will cover the damage. Insurance officials visited the site over the weekend.
KBS, which claims to be the seventh-largest general contractor in Virginia, has done residential- and commercial-development projects in the state. It counts among its clients: the state of Virginia; Richmond, Henrico and Chesterfield counties; Lowe's; Ukrop's Super Markets Inc.; and Wal-Mart.
The company has a clean record, according to state regulators. The Virginia Department of Professional and Occupational Regulation has not documented any complaints concerning KBS and has not taken any disciplinary action against the contractor.
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