ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- Less than an hour after firefighters arrived on the scene of a blaze at a Central West End apartment building Tuesday night, they were forced to evacuate as the top floor of the four-story structure began to collapse.
The flames spread so fast through the attic that firefighters thought something must be wrong with the building.
"Our initial thought process was, 'This is moving way too quickly,' " recalled Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson said.
That's how, by Wednesday afternoon, the chief explained comments he made earlier in the day to reporters at the scene of the still-simmering fire.
He initially said there were no fire walls or other barriers in the attic to slow the spread of the fire. And he said that lightweight, inexpensive construction materials had helped accelerate the fire.
Jenkerson later stepped back from some of the comments. He, along with his boss, Public Safety Director Eddie Roth, and a spokeswoman for Mayor Francis Slay pointed out that the structure was built to code, had working sprinklers and did, in fact, have so-called "draft stops" to slow the spread of fire in the attic.
Jenkerson, though, still had questions about the materials used for the building, even if they were allowed by code. He's not comfortable with construction innovations that emphasize the use of lightweight, synthetic materials over the old standbys of brick and real wood.
"Like every fire chief, I look at the (building) code every year," he said. "We have a risk perspective that's different from the building trades. You've got to take the costs and weigh it against the risk."
No one was killed in the fire at the 197-unit 3949 apartments, in the 3900 block of Lindell Boulevard, but about 250 residents have been displaced.
Although the cause of the fire remains under investigation, officials believe it started about 7 p.m. Tuesday above the ceiling of a top-floor unit on the east side of the building. About 100 people inside the building at the time fled, and 160 firefighters from the city and from departments in St. Louis County battled the blaze.
While the building was under construction in 2007, a fire caused about $12 million in damage. At that time, investigators said a flammable liquid had been used as an accelerant in the fire, which was deemed an arson.
This time, firefighters found nothing suspicious. Jenkerson said the investigation into the cause would take about a week.
EdR Collegiate Housing of Memphis, Tenn., which owns and manages the apartments, said the building was destroyed.
"When the St. Louis Fire Department completes their investigation and provides their report, we will review and respond accordingly," an EdR spokeswoman, Susan Jennings, wrote in an email.
Jenkerson, the fire chief, touched on a longstanding debate about modern construction materials versus those used years ago. Fire officials have often lamented that fires can spread much more quickly in newer buildings.
In the case of the Lindell building, Jenkerson said that although it had the necessary draft stops, the drywall partitions weren't very effective, perhaps because the heat-wave temperatures outside helped the fire spread.
Each walled-off section of attic contained an abundance of joists, plywood and other combustible building materials.
"In between each draft wall, there was basically a lumberyard," Jenkerson said.
While the fire quickly burned through the attic, there were no reported problems with sprinklers, fire doors and alarms in the apartments and public areas of the building.
Len Toenjes, president of Associated General Contractors of St. Louis, said the fire chief had a point about construction materials today.
Many buildings erected "for so many years" in St. Louis were constructed primarily of masonry and other fire-resistant material. Often, only the roof and floor joists were made of wood. As a result, a building's interior could collapse in a major fire but the masonry walls would remain standing, Toenjes said.
In modern structures, made largely of a wooden framework and veneers of brick or stucco, fire can spread devastatingly fast. High-tech fire suppression systems developed in recent years are designed as much to protect occupants as to save buildings, Toenjes said.
The advent of sprinklers, electronic detection of smoke and fire, and other safety innovations allowed builders to use more economical construction material, Toenjes said.
"What I've seen evolve is that as you get more sophisticated electronics and fire-sprinkler systems, the focus is more on protecting the residents than protecting the buildings," he said.
Even so, fires can spread so quickly in newer buildings of lightweight construction that occupants have only a few minutes to escape, some former fire marshals said on Wednesday.
Decades ago, occupants of structures built largely of masonry and other solid materials could hope to have 15 to 17 minutes to escape a fire before a collapse took place, said Chris Gaut, a former fire marshal in Eureka. In newer buildings, the escape window is as little as three to seven minutes, he said.
Roth, the city's public safety director, pointed out that questions of using lightweight building materials was part of "a national debate" and was not unique to St. Louis, which follows national building codes.
Joel Currier of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
