Digital Extra: The Station Fire

Going beyond the new sprinkler-system requirements enacted in Rhode Island several weeks ago, the NFPA's Standards Council overwhelmingly voted to recommend sprinklers in every new club serving 50 or more patrons, and in every existing club serving 100 or more.

The California rock band may never finish the song interrupted by fire at their Feb. 20 show at The Station nightclub in West Warwick.

That was the message yesterday as more than 100 restaurant and hotel owners met at the headquarters of the Rhode Island Hospitality and Tourism Association to vent at state fire officials and express their frustration at trying to comply with the strict new codes approved by the General Assembly in the aftermath of the Feb. 20 Station nightclub fire, which claimed 100 lives.

City and legislative leaders vowed that the breakfast kicked off a new push to get the casino question on a statewide ballot in November 2004 -- a goal that Senate President William Irons said could gain legislative backing when the new session starts in January.

In the most wide-ranging response so far to The Station fire, a national fire-protection group has approved all seven fire code changes that were proposed to make nightclubs, bars and discotheques across the country safer.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

Judge Bruce Q. Morin also ruled that state law allows for the assessment of a penalty personally against the nightclub's owners, brothers Jeffrey and Michael Derderian.

According to lawyers Ronald J. Resmini and Stefanie DiMaio Larivee, Lagueux told those assembled before him that he did not plan to ask a multidistrict panel of judges to decide the jurisdictional issue but would decide himself whether his court or Superior Court, Providence, would hear the civil cases brought by the victims of the nightclub fire.

The hard-rock band Great White started its 40-city concert schedule on Tuesday in Sterling, Colo. Promoter Todd Allen told the Associated Press that about 900 people attended the 70-minute Colorado show, which paused for 100 seconds of silence in memory of the 100 people who died in the fire.

Kinan, 34, was released from Massachusetts General Hospital yesterday afternoon and transferred to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston, where he will continue to recover from his injuries, said his sister, Pam Kinan.

A Workers' Compensation Court judge will rule today on The Station nightclub owners' appeal of a $1.06-million penalty that the state has leveled against their company for failure to purchase workers' compensation insurance.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

The grant comes through the department's Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Max Wistow, an interim lead counsel for those who were killed or injured in the fire, said he will try to work out something with the office of Atty. Gen. Patrick C. Lynch to get the withheld records. But if prosecutors continue to balk at the release of municipal reports relating to the fire's investigation, Wistow said, he would attempt to get a court order from Judge Alice B. Gibney forcing the release of the requested material. Gibney has been appointed to manage pretrial proceedings in Superior Court civil cases brought by fire victims and their families.

Kinan, 34, of Canton, Mass., was one of about 200 people injured in the Feb. 20 blaze at the West Warwick club, which killed 100 people.

Yesterday, Resmini filed motions in U.S. District Court asking that that court retain jurisdiction over the cases that are currently pending there and to deny motions by some defendants to move the lawsuits to Superior Court.

Fire Chief Charles Hall, Police Chief Peter Brousseau and Building Inspector Stephen Murray left attorney Max Wistow's office without revealing what they were asked.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

-- Journal staff

Pyrotechnics set off by the band at the beginning of its show Feb. 20 started the devastating fire that killed 100 people, including band guitarist Ty Longley. About 200 more people were injured in the worst fire in Rhode Island's history.

A federal agency that investigates building failures has developed a plan to examine the Feb. 20 blaze at The Station nightclub, which will include a computer simulation of the fire.

The subpoena issued by Max Wistow, an interim lead counsel for the fire victims and their families, orders Fire Marshal Irving J. Owens to appear with the inspection reports at Wistow's Weybosset Street law office the morning of July 29.

The subpoena issued by Max Wistow, an interim lead counsel for the fire victims and their families, orders Fire Marshal Irving J. Owens to appear with the inspection reports at Wistow's Weybosset Street law office the morning of Tuesday, July 29.

Channel 5 in Boston, WCVB-TV, will be devoting its half-hour news magazine Chronicle to the aftermath of The Station fire in West Warwick.

The U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent months investigating the Feb. 20 fire at the West Warwick nightclub, which was sparked by the band Great White's pyrotechnic display.

Each month the committee that oversees The Station Nightclub Fire Relief Fund discusses how best to disburse donations, now approaching $3 million. As time passes, those conversations are changing.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

-- Journal staff

July 1946 Casey's Inn opens.

-- Journal staff

The story of 211 Cowesett Avenue is a story of men who worked with their hands and fought with their fists, a story singed by fire, doused with booze, and propped up by dreams that tumbled as inevitably as water through the raceway of a cotton mill.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

In the weeks since the Feb. 20 West Warwick fire, reporters for The Providence Journal have been able to determine the cause of death of 57 of the 100 people who died as a result of the nightclub blaze, finding the information on death certificates for many of the victims and interviewing family members of the deceased who obtained death certificates from the state medical examiner's office.

Judge Alice B. Gibney also gave the go-ahead for victims' lawyers to issue subpoenas to various parties to produce documents that lawyers say will help them decide who should be sued in connection with the fire that killed 100 people and injured more than 200 others.

-- Journal staff

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

Employees and the owner of a Minneapolis music club, which was ravaged by a February fire caused by pyrotechnics, are donating some of the proceeds from their grand reopening to The Station Nightclub Fire Relief Fund.

The new budget calls for filling vacancies in the fire marshal's office and adding six new jobs, bringing the staff to 27 positions, said Jeff Neal, spokesman for Governor Carcieri.

Judge Alice B. Gibney also gave the go-ahead for victims' lawyers to issue subpoenas to various parties for the production of documents which the lawyers say they will use to help them decide who should be sued in connection with the fire in which 100 people died and more than 200 were injured.

In court papers filed with Gibney on Wednesday, lawyers representing Triton assert that "there is very limited authority or jurisdictional basis for pre-suit discovery" -- a process under which a court issues an order to make parties give testimony or produce documents.

Carcieri signed "The Comprehensive Fire Safety Act of 2003" on Monday. Both houses of the General Assembly unanimously approved the legislation in the closing hours of the legislative session.

Connecticut Gov. John G. Rowland yesterday signed into law harsher penalties for fire-safety violations and gave local fire marshals power to immediately shut down dangerous venues.

The Campus Fire Safety Right to Know Act requires the "dissemination of information on fire sprinkler or other fire-safety systems in campus buildings," fire statistics in student housing, fire-education programs and information on deaths, injuries and structural damage caused by fire, according to the Rhode Island congressman.

The testing protocols could be approved by a Superior Court judge as early as tomorrow.

In theory, schools already are required to do daily exit reviews. Mandating similar inspections for concert halls was approved yesterday during the second day of talks by a special committee of fire experts seeking to make nightclubs safer.

QUINCY, Mass. -- Pointing to safety problems caused by greedy club owners, coupled with patrons intoxicated by liquor and drugs and confused by loud music and poor lighting, a national panel of fire experts yesterday recommended the strictest safety rules ever for nightclubs and concert venues across the country.

The Quincy-based group's model codes and standards have incorporated lessons learned from significant fires. The group said its recommendations have stimulated fire code reforms nationwide.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

Grandfather clause

-- Journal staff

The NFPA's Technical Committee on Assembly Occupancies will strengthen its recommended fire code to suggest that sprinklers be installed in new places of assembly -- either newly built or newly converted -- and having capacities of 50 people or more. The committee also will recommend sprinklers in some existing buildings with capacities of 100 people or more.

In the less than six months since the deadliest fire in the state's history, the Assembly cast aside its usual special-interest posturing and snail's pace to enact the most sweeping changes in more than a generation in fire-safety laws.

For Robert D. Young's birthday, his wife, Jennifer, went to West Warwick with three "Happy Birthday" balloons and an armful of his favorite things.

The legislation became law in a solemn State House ceremony under a beating noontime sun.

"By working shoulder-to-shoulder, by taking immediate action, we've delivered and we've made good on our promise to take the necesary measures to ensure that we never see a tragedy like this ever again in Rhode Island," Carcieri said.

The new law repeals the "grandfather" exemption from modern fire code and require more sprinklers in places of public assembly, especially nightclubs. It bans pyrotechnics in most indoor venues and give greater power to fire inspectors.

The rush to enact numerous changes in the national fire code as a result of The Station fire has run into opposition from a panel of fire experts that could block many of the changes from taking place anytime soon.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

-- Journal staff

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

-- Journal staff

When Gina M. Gauvin arrived by helicopter at UMass Memorial Medical Center in the early hours of Feb. 21, doctors gave her a 20-percent chance of survival. Her lungs had been seared and two-thirds of her skin severely burned.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

Great White had $1 million in insurance coverage when its Feb. 20 show at a West Warwick nightclub ended in an inferno that claimed 100 lives, a band manager said this week.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

A Florida heavy-metal festival, which was going to raise money for The Station Family Fund, has been postponed because of fire-code issues raised by the local fire marshal.

Lawyers for American Foam, of Johnston, the owners of the nightclub and the corporation they did business under want the cases heard in Superior Court, Providence.

-- Journal staff

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

Victims and families seeking assistance should call (877) 748-3700.

Derderian started work at WPRI last Feb. 17, three days before The Station nightclub burned down and killed 100 people. A rock band's pyrotechnics are blamed for igniting flammable packing foam installed in the club as soundproofing.

The rock band Great White has canceled a benefit concert tour because insurers fear there would be riots caused by people angry over The Station fire, the band manager said last night.