There are dangers in the city’s large, dark, empty places, and City Council last week passed a measure that will make them safer, especially for firefighters. The key to that increased safety is information.
A bill sponsored by Councilman Dennis O’Brien (R-at large) requires the city to create a database of vacant industrial and commercial buildings, create joint L&I and Fire Department inspection teams to evaluate structures and inventory them, make all gathered data available to all city agencies, establish plans to fight fires in those buildings, place exterior warning placards on the buildings and create a task force to drive it all.
“The single most important attribute on the fireground when dealing with a structural fire is: Having pre-incident insights and knowledge of the building and an understanding of the occupancy risks and insights into hazards that may influence or dictate operational parameters,” Christopher Naum, an author, fire instructor and tactical theorist, told a council committee last month.
Former Fire Commissioner William Richmond called O’Brien’s bill, “clear, straightforward and unambiguous.”
Members of council’s Licenses and Inspection Committee held a hearing on O’Brien’s proposed ordinance, №140055, on Oct. 22 and unanimously recommended it to the full council. The bill had its second reading in the full council last week and passed 17–0. It awaits the mayor’s signature.
The measure’s provisions will first be tested in Councilwoman Maria Quinones Sanchez’s 7th Councilmanic District, which O’Brien said has the largest number of vacant industrial properties.
O’Brien’s bill is a response to a fatal five-alarm fire in that district, which includes Frankford and Northwood. Two firefighters, Lt. Robert Neary and Firefighter Daniel Sweeney, died April 9, 2012, battling a fire at the Thomas W. Buck Hosiery Co., a large factory at York and Jasper streets that had been vacant for years.
“We have a fundamental duty to do what is right and make sure this can never happen again,” First Assistant District Attorney Edward McCann told committee members on Oct. 22. “The legislation before you today is a necessary and appropriate response to this devastating event.”
“There are no structures in the city of Philadelphia worth the life of a firefighter,” said Fire Commissioner Derrick Sawyer.
The DA’s office had convened a grand jury to look into the fatal fire, but could not recommend bringing charges against the building’s owners even though there had been repeated community complaints about the property.
Quoting the grand jury, McCann on Oct. 22 said, “The story of York Street is one of a failure of city government … the York Street tragedy stands as a symbol of the city’s long practice of neglect.” ••
