Investigation into cause continues

The flames have long been extinguished, the tenants have moved to new locations, and most of the salvageable items have been packed up and hauled away. All that remains at 899 Island Park Drive is the charred shell of a building - a stark and constant reminder of how quickly things can change. Today, fire investigators are continuing their quest to determine what caused this $2.4 million commercial building to go up in flames.

A Post and Courier newspaper delivery man was the first to notice something was amiss at the building during the early morning hours of March 1. He had stopped to bag his papers under the shelter of the roof covering the Kangaroo Gas Station’s pumps, something he often does when it rains, he said. At 2:38 a.m., a noise caught his attention and prompted him to call 911.

"I heard a bunch of crackling going on and I turned around and looked and the building’s on fire," the man told the City of Charleston dispatcher who took his call.

"He describes it as ‘half the building is on fire,’" said City of Charleston Fire Department Deputy Chief John Tippett, of the 911 caller’s remarks. "So what he’s looking at in my mind is he sees the fire in the windows and he also sees a lot of smoke pushing out of the building and the smoke is traveling to different exit ports."

Within one to two minutes of the 911 call, fire personnel from the Daniel Island Station began to respond. An engine truck, ladder truck, and a battalion chief quickly took control of the scene.

"Engine 118 is on scene," came a voice on the 911 recording. "We have heavy flames showing, second floor."

A second engine, based at the city’s Cainhoy station, arrived at 2:43. About nine minutes later, a third engine arrived from Huger Street downtown, followed by a fourth engine from Cannon Street and a fifth engine and second ladder truck from Coming Street. Units from North Charleston, Mount Pleasant, John’s Island, and James Island were sent to cover the manpower holes downtown created by the call.

"It appears the fire was gaining momentum well before we arrived," said Mark Ruppel, spokesperson for the fire department.

A building smoke alarm was also activated, said Tippett, but it did not provide timely notification of the fire.

"One of the issues with the alarm system is…the fire marshals are telling us that the sensor was remote from where it started, so it took a while for the smoke to build up and activate that alarm…It had a long burn time."

Typically, a fire starts as a smoldering event, added Tippett, and really begins to build momentum if it breaks the windows and gets a rush of oxygen. In the case of 899 Island Park Drive, the battalion chief noted "a large volume of fire" and a flame front that was approximately 30 feet in the air coming out of the windows.

Fire personnel on the ladder trucks hit the blaze with some 360,000 gallons of water using a number of nearby hydrants. There were no problems with water supply, noted Tippett. But one of the most critical weapons used in the fight was insight gained from the Sofa Super Store fire, a devastating event in 2007 that claimed the lives of nine City of Charleston firemen. Quick thinking from Acting Battalion Chief Troy Williams, a Daniel Island-based fireman, prevented potential tragedy when he pulled crews out of the structure after observing fire in the attic space.

"I think it’s fair to say that we looked at (this) fire in a different perspective," said Tippett, who came on staff after the Sofa Superstore blaze. "…Our command officer did a 360-degree sweep of the building. He got all the way around the building and based on his assessment of the fire and smoke conditions, he decided to go defensive, which means he pulled the crews out of the building. It was a good call because within 12 minutes the roof collapsed."

A critical incident review of the fire is underway, added Tippett, and will allow fire crews to properly assess their response overall and how well they performed compared to their standard operating procedures. But already, Williams is receiving high praise from his commanding officers.

"I think the decisions of the initial arriving incident commander were stellar," said Tippett. "It doesn’t get any better than that. It’s always much better to be ten minutes early than one second too late with decisions of evacuation and those kinds of things. He did a phenomenal job."

The structure at 899 Island Park Drive had pre-fabricated, metal studded walls and a wooden truss roof, said Tippett, which is very typical of construction. But the combination of a wooden, combustible truss and metal roof made fighting a fire in the building somewhat challenging.

"The way the truss is constructed, every piece relies on another piece, so a soon as that truss begins to burn, the things that are holding it together are coming apart, which means it’s going to make the roof collapse," explained Tippett. "And then this building also had a metal roof, which made it difficult for us to attack the fire…Here it acted sort of like an umbrella and made it a challenge."

Crews ended up punching holes in the side of the building to get to parts of the structure that were still burning, while ladder personnel continued to spray water down from above. Another factor that impacted the blaze, added Tippett, was that the building did not have a sprinkler system in place.

"Had the structure been sprinkled, it would have been a very small fire," he said. "…The building met code, but not having a sprinkler made a huge difference…There was a lot of damage being done before the fire showed itself to the public."

A cause for the fire has yet to be determined, but an origin point has been "narrowed down," said Tippett. Once a structural engineer has assessed the building and authorized removal of the roof, investigators are hopeful they will be able to determine what sparked the blaze.

2:38 a.m. A newspaper delivery man bagging papers at the Kangaroo Gas Station nearby calls 911 to report the fire.

2:39 a.m. Daniel Island-based Engine 118 arrives on scene.

2:40 a.m. Daniel Island-based Ladder 101 and Battalion Chief 106 arrive on scene.

2:43 a.m. A second engine truck arrives from Station 20 at Cainhoy.

2:52 a.m. The third engine arrives from Huger Street downtown.

2:53 a.m. The fourth engine arrives from Cannon Street downtown.

2:54 a.m. The fifth engine and second ladder truck arrive from Coming Street downtown.
3:23 – 3:28 a.m. Time fire is officially reported "under control" by crews on scene.