Digital Extra: The Station Fire

Two years after The Station nightclub fire, churches are struggling with the costs of meeting the new fire codes.

09:25 AM EDT on Monday, June 13, 2005

BY MICHAEL P. McKINNEY
Journal Staff Writer

PORTSMOUTH -- Inside his yellow shingled church, Pastor Jordan S.C. Jacobson Sr. motions to where the gas lamps once burned and the old fireplaces where flames haven't flickered in ages.

Journal photo / Bob Thayer

Pastor Jordan S.C. Jacobson Sr. stands last week in the Portsmouth Evangelical Friends Church, which will need extensive coating in fire-resistant material to comply with the state fire code.

Over the years, those were a few small sacrifices to keep the state's oldest continuously used church in compliance with Rhode Island's fire code.

But now the Portsmouth Evangelical Friends Church and many other churches face much more expensive and threatening hurdles from new code requirements scheduled to take effect July 1.

Mr. Jacobson says it will cost $40 a gallon for a fire-resistant chemical to be painted on various interior surfaces in his church. "Each gallon only covers 100 square feet," he says, during a tour of the 2,375-square-foot church. "And you have to apply it in three coats. That is some big bucks."

Mr. Jacobson expects other big-ticket expenses, such as a fire suppression system for the kitchen. The church often goes months without using the kitchen.

"The thought of having to dissolve the congregation -- to say we can't meet here anymore because of the fire safety codes -- is a very sobering thought," Mr. Jacobson says.

Two years after fire roared through The Station nightclub in West Warwick, killing 100 people, churches around Rhode Island are trying to meet the new rules without sinking financially.

But the Rev. John Holt, executive minister of the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, and Irving J. Owens, the state fire marshal, say no churches are in danger of having to close immediately.

The state Fire Safety Code Board of Appeals and Review already has a "blanket variance" in effect for all the churches the council represents that will probably continue beyond July 1.

It will give the council, working with the fire marshal, local inspectors and the fire code appeals board time to carry out a plan to identify which rules individual churches must meet and give the congregations more time to raise money.

Mr. Holt said the council will submit its plan tomorrow to the board. The idea is for churches to undergo inspections, which could take several months, then come up with a "matrix of risk" that would account for how often each church is used and classify churches' differing safety threats.

"I would doubt that we would be able to completely be in full compliance much before 2008," he said of all the churches the council represents.

But Mr. Holt, who oversaw the Station Nightclub Relief Fund that assisted families of the victims, made clear that any individual items found to be an "imminent threat to human life," -- flammable materials near a furnace, for example -- would have to be corrected swiftly when identified.

Fire suppression systems in kitchens and the fire-resistant coating on interior surfaces will probably be the focus of the long-term process.

On its face, Mr. Holt said, the fire code presents "a huge problem." Without the expected changes this year to the law and its enforcement, "my belief is several dozen churches will have to close."

Yet there are also misconceptions about what churches have to do to comply. The law lists exemptions for houses of worship. Sprinklers -- which can costs tens of thousands of dollars -- are not required in places used primarily for worship, such as a church sanctuary, according to the fire safety act passed in 2003. If a church has a building or addition serving no worship function, however, that space might be subject to sprinkler requirements.

Owens said inspectors, who have been undergoing training in the new codes, will look at how intensely a sanctuary, a room, a kitchen, in each church is used. It will mean gauging how long churchgoers typically spend in a given church: An hour? Hour and a half? Several hours? "You have to look at what [people] do," he said.

Another consideration: Is it a larger church that cooks dinners regularly or a small one with a weekly or monthly coffee hour?

Some nightclubs hold concerts every evening, packed with an alcohol-fueled crowd and potential rowdiness. In contrast, Mr. Jacobson's church has at most 100 members, who line sanctuary pews on Sunday and Wednesday nights. There is Sunday school but no daycare component during the week, as in some larger churches.

"The problem is the usage doesn't in any way match the capacity. Many of our churches are used once or twice a week, period," Mr. Holt said. In the church survey, 65 of them said kitchens are used less than twice a week. The average weekly church attendance was 88.

"You are talking about 88 members being asked to finance thousands of dollars," said Mr. Holt. "Most of these churches are not an imminent threat to human life."

Owens said it is "not the intent" to force churches to close, given that his office, the fire code appeals board and the state church council have been working together.

Mr. Holt said some churches that are not part of the state council have been included in the blanket variance and plan of action, but some may not be. The Portsmouth church was not on the list, Mr. Holt said.

But additional help may be on the way. The state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill, whose prime sponsor was Sen. Joseph M. Polisena, D-Johnson, that would extend by one year, to July 2006, the deadline for various buildings to comply with the fire safety code. Polisena said he hopes that the bill, which is expected to win approval, could clear a House committee and then the full House this week.

The legislation also means to give fire inspectors the power to waive penalties for occupancy-driven requirements in some buildings that have not installed sprinklers but have a suitable safety plan. A fire official could also extend the 30-day window for a building owner to correct violations as long as there is a faithful effort to correct problems and "no imminent threat to safety."

Supporting the legislation are George Farrell, chairman of the fire code appeals board, and Owens, the fire marshal.

"It's like anything else," Polisena says. "We put in [the new law] a couple of years ago, and now it is time to look at it and say, 'Is it working, does it fit everything?'

"We have a moral obligation to go back and tweak it."

Polisena, a firefighter for 30 years, said that while the legislation would alleviate some immediate pressures on churches, grange halls and other building uses, "this in no way puts anybody's safety at risk."

Not far from Town Hall, the Portsmouth Evangelical Friends Church has been around since 1700, Mr. Jacobson says, before there was a state of Rhode Island or a fire code. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, he says.

"The British took it during the Revolution, but they continued to allow the Friends to use the building," Mr. Jacobson says.

Step inside, and much of the sanctuary where people worship is made of fine wood. Mr. Jacobson points to wood support trusses that go through the ceiling and into the attic, and the wooden pews.

In the main entrance is a wall-mounted panel that controls the fire alarm system, installed fairly recently. Wood closets tucked beneath stairways in the sanctuary no longer hold anything. Old doors have been equipped with a device that allows them to be easily opened. Exit signs have been added.

It is, Jacobson says, not enough.

Look at the shutters gracing the windows that overlook an old cemetery down the hill.

"They have asked us to possibly remove the shutters from the windows -- unless the church wants to paint the [fire resistant] treatment on them as well," Jacobson says.

Mr. Jacobson said he believes the wooden pews will need to be coated in the fire retardant material.

Jacobson has about 100 parishioners, many of modest means.

Maybe the church could take out a loan? Mr. Jacobson expressed doubts that a lender would conclude the church does not have enough projected income or assets to grant a loan.

The state may yet provide assistance that his and other churches could possibly tap into. The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation is seeking $3 million in the coming year's state budget for a special fire code loan program, said Jean Robertson, senior director of policy and research at the state agency.

The program could help places that are turned down or found ineligible by traditional lenders. Still, Robertson noted that lenders often look at the value of property, so if a church or business owned it rather than leased it, they may well qualify for existing loans.

The legislature and governor have not yet settled the budget, so the fate of the fund is not yet known.

Mr. Jacobson shows a bookcase featuring antique, wavy-looking glass. Gaze through it, and inside is an old British cannonball. On a nearby wall is a black-and-white photo of the church when a dirt road meandered past.

"It would be a very sad thing," he says, looking around the sanctuary, "to see it reduced to a museum piece."

Staff writer Michael P. McKinney can be reached at (401) 277-7447 or at mmckinne [at] projo.com