Probe Says Mass. Fire Dept. Failed to Prevent Fire

A state probe of the blaze that destroyed part of the Spring Brook Mills complex last July, displacing several businesses, faulted the Charlton Fire Department for failing to follow up on safety concerns at the building.

The state Department of Fire Services report notes that investigators could find no documented follow-up to a Fire Department report in 2007 detailing problems with the building's sprinkler system, which did not work at the time of the fire, or to a 2009 report of fire code violations at an automobile dismantling business there.

The July 26, 2012, blaze began in one of the garage bays leased by an unnamed automotive dismantling business in the rear building of the complex on City Depot Road.

"The Fire Department should adopt a tracking system for complaints and inspections," concluded state investigator David J. Beaudin.

Fire Chief Charles E Cloutier Jr. acknowledged the problems highlighted by the state investigators and said he had hired a fire protection officer to oversee the inspections and make sure safety problems are tracked and resolved.

"After the structure fire at 6 City Depot Road the Fire Department discovered that documentation of follow-up inspections could be better. As a small department with only 13 full-time staff, it is extremely difficult to accomplish that task," Chief Cloutier said.

The chief got permission at town meeting late last fall to add a full-time fire prevention officer to the department. The new fire prevention officer started last month, he said.

The Telegram & Gazette reported in August that town officials knew of serious fire hazards at a car dismantling business in the complex, known as Charlton Mills, more than two years before the inferno that destroyed the rear warehouse.

In a December 2009 written report to Chief Cloutier, an assistant fire chief described walking into the workspace of a car dismantling business, at the time located in the main mill building, to find a host of serious fire code violations.

"Upon entering the occupancy, there was a car in a stage of being cut up. On the back seat of this vehicle was a gas tank that was not empty and was emitting gasoline vapors," Assistant Fire Chief Michael Mahan wrote at the time.

He also noted the presence of an acetylene torch, multiple car engines, more than a dozen car batteries and open buckets of what appeared to be motor oil.

The state report into the fire, which determined it was ignited accidentally by a halogen lamp, also noted that Assistant Chief Mahan's concerns from 2009.

"There is no follow-up documentation," the state investigator reported.

The investigator also found no documented follow-up to a Fire Department inspection that found serious problems with the mill building's automatic sprinkler system. That system didn't work on the night of the fire.

"The building's automatic sprinkler system appears to have been turned off due to maintenance issues," noted Trooper Daniel C. Jones of the state police Fire and Explosion Investigative Section.

In addition to the 2007 Fire Department report about sprinkler system problems, the state fire investigation file includes a 2011 letter from a Leicester sprinkler company that documented a host of problems with the building's sprinklers. The report from Colby Fire Protection Inc., addressed to Charlton Mills, found that the water supply to parts of the system had been cut and capped underground and that many sprinkler heads were broken or painted over, among other problems.

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