PROVIDENCE -- A federal team studying the causes of The Station
nightclub fire is appealing to the public for information about how it
unfolded.
With the state attorney general's office withholding much of the
relevant information, investigators from the National Institute of
Standards and Training are asking for help directly from people with
knowledge of the West Warwick club's layout and construction, the
location of people in the building, the spread of the fire, and the
emergency response.
The federal investigators are asking for even second-hand information,
and say they will offer anonymity to those who speak to them about the
Feb. 20 fire.
Through an independent investigation, the agency is hoping to identify
the fire's key lessons in a report expected next spring. "We want to be
able to provide the kind of recommendations that could prevent this kind
of tragedy from being repeated in other communities around the United
States in years to come," said Dr. James E. Hill, acting director of
NIST's Building and Fire Research Laboratory.
To date, the team has created computer and physical models of how the
fire spread, and assembled information on the layout of the club and the
people inside it.
But NIST officials said yesterday at a news conference at the Providence
Marriott that without more information, their investigation could be
hampered.
The attorney general's office has said that it will not release any
information that could imperil its criminal investigation of the fire,
now in its ninth month.
Dr. William Grosshandler, who heads the NIST investigation, acknowledged
yesterday that the criminal investigation takes precedence. "We don't
expect them to release anything they don't feel comfortable releasing,"
he said of the attorney general's office. "It's their ballgame."
GROSSHANDLER UNVEILED some preliminary models of the fire at yesterday's
news conference, offering a chilling illustration of how flames engulfed
The Station, and how differently it might have burned if sprinklers had
been installed.
In one video, two small fires ignited by matchbooks -- meant to mimic
the effects of the pyrotechnics that sparked the West Warwick fire --
are unleashed on a full-size model of The Station's walls and stage area.
The fire quickly climbs the model's walls, and a thick black cloud rolls
across the ceiling. In about a minute, the floor of the stage is hot
enough to ignite from the intense heat, and in about 90 seconds, opaque,
poisonous smoke completely fills the room.
On another video, a model built to the same specifications -- but with a
sprinkler system -- is set ablaze. In less than 30 seconds, the
sprinklers activate, beating down many of the visible flames. The flames
continue to burn, but their rapid spread is visibly diminished.
Another model unveiled yesterday concluded it would have taken 4 1/2
minutes to evacuate The Station if there had been 404 occupants and 90
percent of them had flocked to the main exit doors. But that model is
incomplete, Grosshandler said, because it doesn't take into account the
conditions in the club -- lack of light, poisonous air -- that might
have slowed the evacuation.
Also, no one has been able to develop a model that can predict pile-ups
of bodies such as the one that stymied the evacuation in West Warwick,
Grosshandler said. The final NIST study, he said, will likely recommend
more research on that subject.
The models unveiled yesterday were also limited by missing information.
For instance, Grosshandler said, the position of doors and windows at
the time of the fire could have affected how quickly the conditions
inside the club became deadly.
IN PARTICULAR, the NIST investigators are looking for information about
the building's construction and layout, the types of materials used in
it, the positions of windows and doors on the night of the fire, the way
the fire spread, the operation of the fire alarms, the number and
location of people when the fire started, difficulties encountered
during evacuation, and the emergency response.
So far, most of the team's information has come from records that have
already been released to the public, as well as Channel 12 television
footage of the fire. The attorney general's office has also provided
some information to the team.
Congress created NIST's investigative team, known as the National
Construction Safety Team, after the World Trade Center attacks in 2001.
The team continues to investigate the World Trade Center's collapse, and
the nightclub fire is its second major assignment, involving the work of
five staff members.
NIST has provided an anonymous tip line at (877) 451-8001. The agency
can also be reached by fax at (301) 975-6122, by email at
NCST@nist.gov, or at the following address: MCST Rhode Island
Investigation, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100
Bureau Drive, Stop 8660, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8660.
View the NIST team's video on a computer simulation of The Station
nightclub fire and test burns involving foam and sprinklers, at:
http://projo.com/extra/2003/stationfire
