PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Investigators are looking at the air conditioning system at The Station nightclub to determine whether it helped push thick, black smoke through the club, slowing concertgoers as they attempted to flee.
Attorney General Patrick Lynch said his team was looking at the air conditioning system, including the fans and ducts, as part of the criminal probe into the Feb. 20 blaze that killed 100 people.
“It’s one of a whole menu of things that we’re addressing,” he told The Associated Press.
Lynch wouldn’t elaborate on The Station’s air conditioning system or specifics of the investigation.
Air conditioners can be equipped with automatic shut-off valves so when smoke gets into the vents it doesn’t flow through the system.
The state fire code says a fire alarm system “shall be interconnected to the building’s heating, air conditioning and ventilating controls so that the fans 2,000 cfm or greater capacity … shall automatically shut down anytime, other than drills and when testing, that the fire alarm system is actuated.”
Joseph LaFontaine said he upgraded the fire alarm system at The Station in March 2000, before brothers Jeffrey and Michael Derderian purchased the club. He visited the club semiannually to test the system – the last time was September 2002.
LaFontaine, of New England Custom Alarms in Warwick, said the fire alarm system was not connected to the air conditioning system.
“But it wasn’t required to,” LaFontaine said, because the building was constructed before the new rules requiring an automatic shut-off went into effect.
“Today’s standards are much higher than they used to be,” he said.
Telephone calls to state fire and building officials to confirm whether The Station would’ve been required to have the automatic shut-off system were not immediately returned Friday. Calls made to attorneys for the Derderians and managers of the building also were not immediately returned.
East Providence Fire Chief Joseph Castro said the so-called grandfather laws that exempt older buildings from having sprinklers also may have exempted The Station from having its fire alarm connected to the air conditioning system.
The building that housed The Station was built in the 1940s and falls under rules set in 1968, the year the state first adopted a fire code.
Witnesses said dense, black smoke filled the club soon after sparks from a band’s pyrotechnic display set fire to polyurethane foam surrounding the stage. Video footage recorded by a television cameraman at the nightclub that night also showed black smoke billowing from the building.
Survivors of the fire have said the smoke prevented them from seeing exits.
“I’ve heard stories of eyes burning, tearing. Just the sheer density of the smoke blocking any light was a problem,” said attorney Steven Minicucci, who represents survivors of the fire. “Some people became disoriented to even where the exit was.”
Death certificates showed some victims died of smoke inhalation, Minicucci said.
“The toxicity of the fire was an issue in the smoke inhalation,” he said.
Autopsy reports have been completed by the medical examiner but the office is withholding the results because of the criminal investigation, said spokeswoman Carol Capron.
Max Wistow, an attorney leading litigation stemming from the fire, said his team is also looking at the air conditioning system as part of a private investigation.
to determine whether product manufacturers may be liable for the fire’s rapid spread.
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