Eight years after the deadly Ghost Ship exposed significant lapses in Oakland’s fire prevention efforts, the city recently cut the ranks of its fire inspectors by more than a third, NBC Bay Area’s Investigative Unit has learned.
The city’s Fire Prevention Bureau is tasked with inspecting some 26,000 properties, including state-mandated annual checks of schools, apartment complexes and high-rise structures. But city auditors have found it has failed to perform state mandated checks to spot hazards and verify critical fire safety systems are operational.
The city bolstered the bureau ranks rom 8 inspectors to 26 following widespread criticism of city efforts following the Dec. 2, 2016, Ghost Ship fire that left 36 dead.
The cluttered warehouse, it turned out, had not been officially inspected in the years leading up to the deadliest fire in Oakland history.
“It doesn't feel like the lessons of the ghost ship have really been learned when it comes to fire safety,” said Ghost Ship survivor Carmen Brito, who currently lives in an artist collective on the city’s waterfront.
Brito, a ceramics teacher, says while local artists have dedicated themselves to safety since the fire – putting in fire extinguishers and clearing flammable materials from workspaces – the city is not doing its part.
“The problem with the Ghost Ship is that it was never even on the list to inspect,” said Mary Alexander, the lawyer who sued the city on behalf of victims and their families.
She said that the city never admitted wrongdoing when it settled the suit for $33 million. While that may be a standard part of litigation, she says the evidence revealed a major breakdown in the city’s efforts.
“It had never been inspected by the fire department, even though it was just a block away -- they could visually see the building from the fire department,” Alexander said.
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Following the fire, Mayor Libby Schaaf appointed a task force that called for widespread reform – including bolstered fire prevention bureau staffing. City data shows that at the time of the fire, the bureau had just eight inspectors to carry out the 26,000 inspections.
The ranks swelled to 26 inspectors in 2020, in line with task force recommendations. But today, staffing is down to 16 inspectors. Ten fire inspector positions – left unfilled due to budget shortfalls – were officially cut in June.
Staffing was at its highpoint, when, in 2020, the city auditor highlighted the languishing inspection backlog. Two years later, another audit found lapses in inspector certification. The department has since addressed that issue, while making some progress in the backlog, fire officials say. But the city is still not carrying out all mandated annual checks of schools, apartments, hospitals and other facilities, fire officials acknowledge.
Fire Chief Damon Convington, who took over the department last year, declined to be interviewed for this story. “We want to get to every position being filled,” he told the City Council at a hearing last month.
But, he said, the fire prevention bureau is particularly challenging. “In our fire prevention bureau… we’ve had several losses in the last few weeks with people jumping to different departments, due to concern about the budget.”
“We need the fire inspectors available and certainly we don't have enough today,” said City Councilmember Noel Gallo, who lives near the Ghost Ship site. He said the city’s decision to officially cut unfilled inspector slots was simply a matter of accepting that the city can’t count on the sale of the Coliseum property to fill all the budget holes.
“They were banking on the Coliseum money that hasn't come about,” Gallo said.
As for the Ghost Ship property, the city recently approved a low-income housing complex to replace it, complete with a memorial for the victims.
Carmen Brito, meanwhile, is making her own memorial in the garden of her artist collective, complete with 36 tiles to honor each victim. She says while the official memorial being built on the Ghost Ship site is fitting, the city must finally make good on its obligation to fully fund fire inspection efforts.
“The Ghost Ship fire was preventable” had there been proper inspections, she said, as she tended her garden memorial. “It dishonors the dead to not do everything in your power to make sure that that never happens again like that -- to me is the only fitting memorial for the 36 people who died is to ensure that it never happens again.’’
