On 2 December 2016, at about 11:20 pm PST, a fire broke out in a warehouse, known as Ghost Ship, which has been converted into a group of artists, including residential units, in the Fruitvale neighborhood of Oakland, California. At the time of the fire, the warehouse held a concert featuring artists from the record label house music 100% Silk. Use of residence or entertainment is not permitted under the warehouse permit in the event of fire.
A total of 36 people were killed in the most lethal fire in Oakland history. It was also the deadliest building fire in the United States since The Station's biggest nightclub fire in 2003, the deadliest in California since the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the deadliest mass casualty event in Oakland since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.
The Alameda District Procuratorate Office launched an investigation into the cause of the fire. In March 2017, emails from 2014 were reported to have described a serious electrical problem in the building. On June 5, 2017, two owners of the Ghost Ship were arrested and accused of an unintentional crime of murder in connection with the fire.
Video 2016 Oakland warehouse fire
Investigation and prosecution of fires
Build
The 9,880 square foot convertible store (918 m 2 ), known as the Ghost Ship, is home to collective artists, who work and live there. It is informally known by the tenants as Satya Yuga. At the time of the fire, the residents held a concert promoted by the 100% Silk house music record label, and featured musicians from the list. About 50 people were present in the building at the time of the fire.
A preliminary report mentions the origin of fires for refrigerators, but these causes are rejected by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and the Russian Explosives, although the agents initially left open the possibility that it was initiated by other electrical devices or components. Max Ohr, creative director of collective artists, says collectives have reported power problems to building owners. The fire started on the first floor and spread quickly, and the people on the second floor were at first unaware of it.
Several factors prevented the discovery of fire, impeded the process of escape, and caused the loss of life. There were no sprinklers in the building, and the firemen at the scene did not hear the smoke detectors. The building is filled with furniture, piano, art, and mannequins, most of which are made of wood. The head of the Oakland Fire Department, Teresa Deloach Reed, told reporters, "It feels like a labyrinth almost."
There are two stairs, one at the back and one at the front, but it does not lead directly to the exit. The second floor staircase is hidden behind the contents and furniture. The front staircase, made from a pallet of wooden piles, was originally reported as the only ladder of the building.
Only a few people on the second floor can escape. They had to crawl along the floor to avoid smoke filling the building, and struggled to find the front door because of the complicated layout and chaos blocking the way. Some survivors were rescued by someone who stood at the front door and kept shouting at the location so that people still inside the building could navigate to a safe place. A large number of victims were trapped on the second floor by the smoke filling the stairs and because the pallet pallet used as the front steps was likely to burn.
The first firemen reached the warehouse at 11:27 pm. It took five hours for 52 firefighters, using 14 pieces of equipment, to extinguish the blaze. Search and rescue personnel deployed drone aircraft using heat imaging that failed to search for victims after the collapse of the roof that made the scene unsafe.
Of the five musicians scheduled to perform at the concert, two main players Golden Donna and Aja Archuleta - are confirmed to have escaped fire. Three other musicians on the bill - disc jockey Nackt (Johnny Igaz), electro-industrial player Joey Casio (Joseph Matlock) and home music artist and Charshii radio host (Chelsea Faith Dolan) - were killed.
17-year-old Draven McGill, who sings in the Pacific Boychoir, is the youngest to die of the fire, and Wolfgang Renner, 61, a musician who plays an electronic keyboard, is the oldest. Of the dead, all but one were visitors to the warehouse.
Criminal investigation
Criminal investigations into the fire were launched by the District Courts Office of Alameda on 4 December. Burning investigations were also launched. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaff said the allegations against anyone found responsible could range from unintentional killings to murder. A report published on February 8, 2017, can not be concluded, noting that the investigation is ongoing and that the electrical system is part of the analysis.
In a public statement dated January 23, 2017, lawyer for Ghost Shipbuilder Derick Ion Almena claimed that the fire came from a building adjacent to the warehouse, and that Almena should not be held accountable.
On March 14, 2017, Oakland Fire Department Chief Teresa Deloach Reed submitted his resignation. The principal prosecutor of Alameda County responsible for the investigation had requested a firefighting report in the city for several weeks when he finally received a copy on 17 March. The contents are not released to the public. On March 21, 2017, a judge ruled that all debris from the fire should be preserved as potential evidence in pending lawsuits.
The East Bay Times reported on March 24, 2017, that the building owner's son wrote an email about the power issue to Derick Almena on February 15, 2015. The Times stated that Almena illegally leased space live to other artists in the warehouse. They found an e-mail indicating that Almena had complained to his owner's son that the electricity in the building was using an "ancient distribution channel" that "desperately needs total and immediate improvement." The paper reports that an electrician who is currently unlicensed has made improvements in 2014. He found an unmanned subpanel and "maintenance suspended for decades requiring immediate intervention." He reports to the owner that a 7.5-kilovolt transformer is intended for lighting used for three businesses in space owned by Ng, exceeding capacity. A lawyer representing the victim's family stated, "They notice that there is a problem with electricity."
Origin of fire
The Oakland Fire Department, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and Arson's Unit Alameda County issued a report on June 19, 2017 about the fire. It states that all 36 victims died by inhaling the smoke. Only one person was seriously injured. The sheriff's office said, "Apparently people got out [safely], or they did not make it."
It took three days for the investigator to recover all the victims from the building. They get rid of the fire debris in a five-gallon bucket as they filter out the collapsed second floor. The debris includes wooden pallets, sculptures, piles of furniture, mobile homes, and mannequins. The first floor emergency aisle is built of "aggregates of salvaged and scavenged materials, such as pianos, organs, windows, wooden benches, timber, and countless other items stacked beside and above each other." The work space is immediately separated by a variety of things, including "wooden buttons, steel beams, doors, window frames, bed frames, fences, pianos, benches, chairs, whole motorhomes and trailers, parts of trailers, corrugated sheet metal, rugs, , statues, tree stumps, and tree branches. "The researchers concluded that the fire originated in the northwest area of ​​the ground floor, but could not determine the cause of the fire due to extreme damage to the building and its contents.
Charged bill
On June 5, 2017, the creative director of the Almena Ship and Ghost of Max Harris was arrested and charged with the accidental killing of crimes in connection with the fire. They remain in custody at the Santa Rita Prison in Dublin under $ 750,000 of bonds and if proven they face up to 39 years in prison each.
On September 27, 2017, at the Alameda County High Court in Oakland, Ã, CA Almena and Harris pleaded not guilty to 36 counts of unintentional murder crimes. The initial trial is set for 13 November. They will be tried on July 16, 2018.
Maps 2016 Oakland warehouse fire
Building issues
The building was built in 1930, and was once part of a bottling factory of milk, and then a warehouse for metal pipes. This property was purchased in 1988 by Chor Ng, which is linked to 17 other properties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before the fire, the building was under investigation by the Oakland Planning and Development Agency for "rotten disease" and "illegal interior construction". Complaints of dangerous garbage and construction debris around the building have also been made. Ng rented the property to the last rental holder, Derick Almena, in 2013.
There are at least ten complaints filed about the property since 1998, most recently on 13 and 14 November 2016. City building inspectors visited the warehouse on November 17, but left when no one answered the door. Supervisors are required to obtain permission from the owner to obtain entry permits, and when that fails, must seek a court order. A spokesman for the Department of Planning and Building noted that events such as a concert on December 2 would require special permission, but nothing was released. The Oakland Town planning director revealed that the building had not been inspected for three decades.
Although the building owner does not intend the warehouse to become residential accommodation for one of the artists, the city is investigating whether people live in a warehouse illegally. Ng states that nobody lives in the building, according to a translation by her daughter, Eva. However, neighbors reported that it seems people live in the building. One victim, Peter Wadsworth, was a building occupant.
Although the city had labeled the warehouse a "fire hazard", the founder of the Ghost Ship, Derick Ion Almena, allegedly did not respond to the city's concerns. Almena has stated that he, his wife, Micah Allison, and his three children sleep in a warehouse. Residents and others reported that he lived with his wife and children on the second floor and rented a room for as many as 18 other people staying in recreational vehicles and emergency rooms on the first floor. The vice-president of the local firefighter union said that the fire-fighting marshal's office had been deprived for years, and that fire inspectors who saw the condition of the Ghost Ship "would close the place".
Adding to the discussion, on Dec. 13, the Oakland Fire Chief said "there is no indication this is an active business", that no city records indicate his department has received complaints about the building and that the department "checks business, not buildings".
Reaction
In an interview, Oakland Town Council member Noel Gallo said that city officials "need to enforce the code we have" and that "we should have been more assertive in the past."
The Oakland Athletics baseball team offers to match donations for those affected, up to $ 30,000; the Oakland Raiders football team soon joined them. The Oakland-based Golden State Warriors basketball team announced a $ 50,000 donation to the Fruitvale-based Unity Council. The Warriors announced an additional $ 75,000 donation for relief efforts on Dec. 7. Warriors player Stephen Curry auctioned off two pairs of shoes for $ 45,201 to get Oakland Fire Relief funds. On December 9th, the Gray Area Foundation for Art has raised over $ 550,000 and is scheduled a charity concert for December 14th, featuring Bay Area musicians such as Primus, Tune-yard, and Boots Riley.
Facebook Security Check is used to help people find where friends and family might be present.
On Dec. 3, the 100% Silk Record label posted on their Facebook page: "What's happening in Oakland is a tremendous tragedy, a nightmare scenario Britt and I are beside ourselves, totally destroyed. very strict artists and we all pray, sending love and condolences to everyone involved and their families. "
After the fire, a man identified as Satya Yuga's collective founder, Derick Ion Almena, posted on Facebook that the fire had destroyed his warehouse. This post was criticized by some other Facebook users, who noted that the collective founder did not mention anything about people who were killed or injured in the fire.
Almena then clarified her comment, stating, "In my previous Facebook post, I did not know there were any fatalities." In a brief interview on December 5, he talked about the families of the victims, saying, "They are my children, they are my friends, they are my family, they are my love, they are my future." In another interview on December 6 Almena said she was "deeply sorry" and defended herself against the allegations of making a profit, saying, "This is not a profit, it's a loss, it's a mass grave."
On the night of December 5, hundreds of people attended vigils in Oakland and San Francisco, in honor of the fire victims.
Locals, including artists and tenant rights activists, have called the fire a symptom of the housing crisis that underlies the San Francisco Bay Area. The city inspectors have voiced suspicions that dozens of workplace warehouses are similar to Ghost Ships in Oakland. On December 6, Mayor Libby Schaaf announced $ 1.7 million in grant funds to create an affordable space for artists and art organizations. He announced plans for the resurrection and expansion of task forces in the Artist and Workplace Housing, and the establishment of a fire safety taskforce.
On December 23, 2016, the parents of two fire victims filed a lawsuit at the Alameda County High Court. The people mentioned in the lawsuit include the owner of the building, the main tenant, the event promoter, and the player at the event.
A comparison was drawn between this fire and the Happy Land fire of 1990, a nightclub fire in New York City that claimed 87 lives. The Happy Land fire also involves the controversial operation of the structure, and suffers from similar conditions including the lack of emergency exits and poor maintenance. But the fire is very different because it is a mass burning/killing attack that is not pure neglect.
See also
- List of accidents and disasters due to deaths
- List of disasters in the United States by the death toll
- List of fires
- List of nightclub fires
References
External links
- Oakland Ghost Ship website at Wayback Machine (archived January 5, 2017)
- "The last list was released from 36 Ghost Ship casualties in Oakland". SF Gate. December 9, 2016. Ã,
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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