Lapses Cited In Fighting Deadly Pang Fire Poor Communication, Planning Detailed In Internal Report
Had firefighters checked a burning warehouse more thoroughly, they would have known where the flames were centered before four men died in the blaze, an internal report has concluded.
A 63-page Fire Department report said the fire at the Mary Pang Food Products warehouse on Jan. 5 was mistakenly identified as an exterior blaze because firefighters never made a complete “walk-around.”
Instead, the fire was in a basement that firefighters didn’t even know was there, and four of them died when the main floor of the frozen food warehouse collapsed, plunging them into an inferno.
Martin Pang, son of the owners of the building, has been charged with murder and arson and is awaiting extradition from Brazil, where he fled after the fire.
The report issued Wednesday blamed poor communication and lack of information about the building for mistakes during the fire.
“There was a mass screw-up in this fire,” said John Shoemaker, a retired Seattle firefighter and father of Lt. Greg Shoemaker, one of those who died. “They weren’t paying any attention to the knowledge they had.”
Shoemaker said his son was not aware of the basement fire. “If he had been, I know where he would have been - he would have been in that basement or down there putting a hose through a window,” he said.
Deputy Fire Chief Don Taylor, head of the committee that produced the report, said the mistakes did not cause the firefighters’ deaths. He said the men died because of a structural flaw that caused the floor to collapse.
The report made 22 recommendations, including creating a department safety division, assigning assistants to commanders at fire scenes and providing engine companies with four firefighters instead of three.
The safety division would give the department five safety officers instead of one. The city is expected to approve that proposal soon, at a cost of $155,000 to $175,000.
The internal review mirrored findings of previous reports on the fire by the U.S. Fire Administration and the state Department of Labor and Industries. It noted that firefighters at the rear of the building could see a basement fire but did not inform supervisors.
Had the source of the fire been pinpointed, the report said, firefighters would have attacked from the rear of the building and provided rescue and exposure protection with hoses from the front - the opposite of what took place.
The report also said news of the arson threat against the Pang warehouse was not widely shared among firefighters because of state law that protects informants.
Even though department officials knew about the threat, they never ordered an inspection of the warehouse to better understand the layout. Taylor said the department did not make a pre-fire plan because doing so might have endangered the safety of the informant.
But fire department spokeswoman Georgia Taylor said the department has changed its procedures for arson threats. Information is now put into a computer and firefighters are notified by radio en route that a building is a possible arson target, she said.