At first, some residents of the West Oakland rental complex thought it was an April Fool's Day prank when a neighbor yelled, "Fire! Fire!"
Then they smelled the smoke billowing through the hallway of the building at 3010 Adeline St., where the structures had been converted from a warehouse to apartments during World War II. Reality set in.
The April 1 blaze tore through eight units. A 60-year-old woman died and six police officers were injured helping renters escape.
The outcome, however, could have been different.
Although investigators ruled the fire an accident - a space heater ignited a mattress covered by clothing and bedding - they found no working smoke detectors in the building and several units did not have a detector as required by California's fire code, according to the fire investigation report. That may be because tenants removed batteries from the smoke alarms, or just took them down.
It was something the Oakland Fire Department could have detected. But because of a clerical oversight and lack of staff members, fire inspectors may not have inspected the building since 2001, when firefighters responding to a 911 call found missing or inoperable smoke detectors, according to an April 29, 2001, report to the then assistant fire marshall. A follow-up check was conducted in September, but no records exist of subsequent inspections, although fire-safety checks at multiunit commercial residential buildings are supposed to be conducted annually to comply with the California fire code.
Instead, it was an Oakland police officer, Ercivan Martin, who was first alerted to the blaze by a passing motorist. Martin called for police and fire backup.
Firefighters later found Janice Ann Lieuallen near the front door of her apartment, where she died trying to escape, according to an Oakland Fire Department investigation report.
The flames, sparked by a space heater in apartment No. 119, spread from the bedding to the ceiling, ripped through the wall and traveled to Lieuallen's apartment, No. 120, next door.
It took 27 firefighters five hours to battle the blaze.
By the time some 50 displaced residents were shuttled to a nearby American Red Cross shelter, the fire had caused nearly $1 million in property damage and content losses.
Terrence Andrews, the owner of the 38-unit rental building that has been empty since the blaze, said all the apartments now have working smoke detectors but could not verify if that was true the day of the fire. He said residents removed batteries from some of the detectors. "The tenants have to see what is going on and tell the landlord," he said. "I can't see everything."
Andrews said the smoke seals he installed on the doors prevented the smoke from reaching the apartments and setting off the alarms.
Former building tenant and Lieuallen's boyfriend, Thomas Hampton, said he knew the batteries were dead in the smoke detector in his and Lieuallen's unit. But he did not complain to Andrews. He said he did tell Andrews that the alarm - above the door between the kitchen and the bedroom - sounded a lot because the stove had no exhaust vent, setting off the siren every time the couple cooked.
"I had no idea something like that would happen," Hampton said. "If I did, I would have been harping on it."
Smoke alarms didn't do job
The flames and the heat trapped Lieuallen and kept Hampton from rescuing her.
Hampton, 73, who returned from running errands to find the apartment on fire, stood at the doorway, yelling for her to climb out of a window. But Lieuallen was trapped and it was too hot for Hampton to get into the apartment. Lieuallen didn't have the strength to open or break the windows, Hampton said.
The heavy warehouse windows, large plates made of several smaller squares of glass, open outward instead of up and down, said former resident Gino Herrera.
Herrera's roommate, Diane Griffin, busted out a window in their apartment (No. 216) during the blaze to let smoke escape and alert firefighters that she was inside.
Herrera said his smoke alarm didn't go off during the fire. He had not tampered with it, nor had management inspected it in the year he lived there, Herrera said. "I never thought about it. I assumed that it worked."
Owners of rental buildings are required to maintain records of smoke-alarm testing and upkeep, which must be provided to the fire or building inspectors upon request, according to the California fire code. But no penalties exist for not meeting the requirements of the code, which was incorporated into the Oakland Municipal Code in 2007.
The responsibility for providing smoke alarms placed in the appropriate location ultimately rests with the property owner. The tenants, however, should not remove the batteries, and should alert the owner or manager when a smoke alarm is not working.
"The fire department can only monitor so much," said James Edwards, Oakland's deputy fire chief.
Njeri Sims said her apartment (No. 211) was not equipped with a detector, although her neighbor's device was so sensitive that showering would set it off. It failed during the fire, Sims added, because the alarm never sounded when smoke was in the hallway.
Sims also said she complained to the property manager about the lack of a detector, which was not installed in her studio until after the blaze.
"I found a white smoke detector in my black apartment," she said, adding that she is pursuing a lawsuit over the lack of smoke detectors in the building.
Andrews did not respond directly to the comments, but said he ran one of the quietest, safest buildings in West Oakland.
"I am striving to reopen as fast, safe, warm and secure as possible," he said. "That's how I have run this business for many years."
Renters made a complaint to the city in 1996 and 1999 about missing smoke alarms, according to records kept by the city Building Services department.
An Oakland Fire Department inspection record Sept. 17, 2001, showed the owner replaced missing or nonworking smoke detectors that a fire crew responding to an emergency medical call at the address noticed were missing and reported to the Fire Prevention Bureau. This was the last documented inspection, records show.
Fire inspectors understaffed
About 11/2 years ago, files showing the city's terrain block-by-block were created, said Edwards, the deputy fire chief. The block the 3010 Adeline building sits on, however, was missing on paper because the file was not given to the fire station responsible for inspections in that district, he said.
The department fixed the error, probably after the fire, Edwards said. "We missed some places."
The number of staff members is dwarfed by the number of buildings to inspect, Edwards said. Engine companies are supposed to check multiunit commercial residential buildings annually for fire safety - smoke alarms, fire extinguishers, flammable materials, emergency exits, fire escapes - in their districts. Crews will call fire inspectors if they notice numerous violations. But they have difficulty keeping up with annual inspections between training, public education and emergency responses.
As of August 2007, Oakland had eight full-time inspectors for at least 14,000 commercial residential and business occupancies, Edwards said. The number of inspectors, who also have numerous other fire-safety tasks, had sunk to three several years ago, by his count.
With such uneven ratios, the department has to prioritize by going after mid- and high-rise residential buildings because the potential for loss of life is so great, Edwards said.
Inspectors report the problems, notify the owner and make a compliance visit to check whether the problems have been fixed. If not, Edwards said, owners are fined "to persuade them to comply." Sometimes inspectors have to return multiple times. "There are a lot of follow-ups."
Meanwhile, the ornate building on Adeline Street sits empty, the windows of the charred units boarded up, the 50 or so former tenants long since dispersed to new homes.
Andrews said the repairs to get the building in "good condition" are progressing. "Good living conditions are always needed in that area," he said, referring to the rash of fires that burned three nearby houses.
Andrews has until Jan. 17 to complete the first level of repairs, but there is no deadline for the overall renovation. Building Services, however, will be monitoring the progress to make sure the repairs remain on schedule.
With the renovations, Andrews may be required to install a manual fire-alarm system, a lever that someone can pull to alert others, which was not in place at the time of the fire because smoke detectors were supposed to be placed in the units and common hallways. A working smoke-alarm system or sprinklers could have created a "very different outcome," Edwards said.
"The impact of fire is just tragic."
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