Digital Extra: The Station Fire

05:36 PM EST on Thursday, February 19, 2004

projo.com staff

A federal agency investigating The Station nightclub fire now says its probe will be completed this year, U.S. Sen. Jack Reed announced today.

The Rhode Island Democrat said he contacted the National Institute for Standards and Technology after learning that the agency, citing a lack of funds, was going to delay completion of its report until next year.

He was told that the agency has "re-examined its priorities" and would complete the probe in this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, according to a press release from Reed's office.

NIST had complained that a lack of funds would prevent it from completing its report on the West Warwick fire until the start of its next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. The agency had hoped to complete the probe by April.

"This investigation is too important to be put on the back burner," Reed said. "The impact of this horrific incident on our small state is immeasurable and we must learn why and how it occurred. More importantly, we must learn how to prevent such tragedies in the future."

The worst fire in the state's history, which marks its first anniversary tomorrow, claimed 100 lives and injured another 200.

The National Construction Safety Team, a subdivision of the institute, is investigating why the fire spread through the nightclub so fast and why more people couldn't escape.

The federal agency does not have a separate budget for The Station investigation, NIST spokesman Michael Newman said Tuesday. Instead, the probe is being paid for out of money for the agency's building and fire research laboratory.

When the current federal budget year began Oct. 1, Congress and the president had not reached agreement on a spending plan, so federal agencies operated under continuing resolutions, which allowed them to spend at the same rate as last year. The budget that was finally approved Jan. 23 had much less money in it for the agency's laboratories than President Bush had proposed.