Union fire threatened lives; warning not heeded

Firefighters nearly retreated from ASU’s Memorial Union as fire spread from one floor to another, fearing the building might explode into flames.

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The heat inside climbed so high, the air and smoke might have ignited, threatening the lives of the firefighters and anyone else in the union. More than 5,000 people were evacuating from the busiest building on campus.

“That was a potentially life-ending situation,” said Mike Reichling, the fire inspector who responded to the incident.

The Tempe Fire Department crew initially played down the risk they faced in the Nov. 1 fire.

But new details have emerged this week from firefighters, which show the fire threatened lives. And public records show that Arizona State University officials knew the union was dangerously unprepared before the blaze started in a second floor storage closet.

As firefighters worked, the blaze neared a flashover — when heat reaches the ignition point of combustible gasses in the air, Tempe fire Chief Cliff Jones said Friday. A flashover would have caused the union’s smoke-filled ballroom to erupt.

“If firefighters are in there and it flashes over, the chances of them getting out are very slim,” Jones said.

One veteran firefighter told Reichling the union fire was the hottest of his career. Another firefighter considered pulling the crew out because it didn’t seem they were making headway. Finally, they saw some improvement and decided to stay.

“The actions of the firefighters saved that building,” Reichling said.

ASU officials learned at least six months earlier that a fire could grow easily, unchecked within the union.

In April, as first-floor restaurants were renovated, a fire-protection engineering company inspected the building.

The findings were worrisome.

“The Memorial Union building is lacking both life-safety and fire-protection features which are deemed critical due to the large occupant load of the building,” the inspection report states.

Safety problems abounded in the 255,000-square-foot union, from the walls to the elevators, the report found.

ASU Fire Marshal Jim Gibbs lobbied some of the university’s top officials to heed the warning and install equipment to protect the union, e-mail records show.

The university released the inspection report and e-mails related to the union’s life-safety equipment Friday afternoon in response to a Tribune records request.

On April 11, Gibbs sent a message to his bosses, Leon Igras, ASU’s health and safety director, and LeEtta Overmyer, head of all the university’s safety departments, asking for support.

The union had already spent all the money intended for renovations that it had received from Aramark, ASU’s food service provider. Regardless, Gibbs wrote that he pushed the union’s facilities director to install sprinklers.

“I asked him to seriously consider life-safety improvements for the facility,” Gibbs wrote, “he is already aware of the deficiencies of the building but I reiterated them again.”

Overmyer responded to Gibbs, asking him to elaborate and document the problems so that she could provide them to her boss, Paul Ward, ASU’s top attorney.

The e-mails ASU provided to the Tribune don’t show whether university officials further considered the safety measures.

The university budgeted $760,000 in February to upgrade the union’s fire alarms, Overmyer said in a written response to Tribune questions.

Igras didn’t immediately return calls for comment Friday.

Scandaliato Design Group, the fire inspectors, recommended ASU replace its existing sprinklers and fire alarms.

The alarm system that covered 90 percent of the union was deficient, the inspection report states. “Since this building is only partially protected by a fire sprinkler system, limited smoke detector coverage may result in a fire being unchecked.”

Sprinklers covered only the basement and parts of the first floor. The second and third floors, where the fire began and spread, were unprotected.

Several of the university’s buildings were constructed before Arizona had a fire code and required sprinklers. However, ASU installed sprinklers in its dorms about 20 years ago.