The SLO City FD leadership has repeatedly stated we had a huge fire load at Square Deal Recordings & Supplies. This is relatively untrue and totally untrue from the perspective of the two hours they had to stop the fire that was not yet in our building or prevent it from entering Square Deal. Whatever fire load Square Deal had was irrelevant in the beginning, when the fire was only in The Sub.

On the two recent inspections, the Fire Department "guys" said that they "would not fight a fire in our building anyway" when commenting on our very full warehouse. They said this in front of multiple witnesses. We thought it in jest.

We thought it meant that SLO City FD would give up easily, not that they would assist in burning down the building when it could easily be saved and was not even involved in the initial fire.

We have heard from other property owners who have also been told they would also not get fire service.

Our main building is 40% office space in the front - no unusual fire loads than any office space would have. The bottom of the roof is exposed above a drop ceiling. This is the portion where the fire exploded in the front of Square Deal and vented out through the 8'x8' hole SLO City FD had cut above the spot where we think the fire was lit (to start the front of Square Deal on fire).

The next 40% of our main building had LP records (not really flammable) in shelves on the main floor on the east side and empty DVD & security cases above (barely flammable) and below were our shipping and work areas which amount to only 20% of the entire building. It is this 20% of Square Deal that was the "unusual" fire load which apparently frightened the firefighters. This 1,500 square foot portion is described in many of the firefighter narratives, using the same language, as if the description reflects the entire 10,000+ square foot building, which it does not. The really flammable inventory was the plastic, injected polystyrene (CD jewel boxes), which was in the front comic locker in the rear of the building, not in the main building.

It was well over two and a half hours, after the fire started, before it reached this part of Square Deal.

The only connections between The Sub and Square Deal was a 32" wide by 6' tall portal (office doorway) into Square Deal that was The Sub's back office. This office had metal shelving and packaged merchandise on the shelves as well as our receiving counter. A two-sided 5/8" drywall wall (20-minute firewall) separated this part of The Sub from Square Deal. Within 12 minutes after the fire started, Richard Ferris (owner) was trying to get BC-1 Berryman to defend the breach. Berryman had over two hours to do this but did nothing! He never stationed personnel to defend this breach. It turned out the fire never went into The Sub office yet, somehow, the front of Square Deal exploded in flames as if it did - The firefighters' narratives on this portion of the fire claim that it did. They claim it came through the firewall, when existing evidence clearly shows it did not.

Since the fire did not come out through The Sub office and into Square Deal, it is strange that Captain Callahan had the need to cut an 8'x8' vent hole above The Sub office where the fire later exploded upward. A short time after this act, a huge fire plume does indeed erupt through this hole and started the front of the Square Deal main building on fire in full. This initial huge fire cloud cannot be explained by the items burning below the opening because most items were unburned after the fire. The huge initial fire bloom looked like petroleum products burning black smoke - not desks, paper, and open space. Before they were done, SLO City FD cut seven more large drafting holes in the Square Deal roof, all when NO interior attack is being considered.

The second breach in the Square Deal 13" masonry firewall was at the back of the structure - A 2' 8"x5' former window. We also asked to have this breach defended. With over two hours, we could have cut a 1-1/8" piece of plywood and plugged that breach. This would have kept the fire in The Sub's beaded curtain room as far as the Square Deal main building was concerned - A garden hose and water could have easily stopped the fire at this firewall as well, if only a team of firemen had been stationed to defend this opening.

The poster/CD staging room over The Sub's beaded curtain room is where the fire came into Square Deal. It came in very slowly. A person with buckets of water could easily have stopped it. A fireman with a garden hose (let alone a 1-3/4" line) would have spent less than ten seconds, if he was there and had been allowed to try to put it out, thereby stopping it from entering Square Deal.

Very little merchandise was burned in Square Deal. It was all ruined by water. We had to haul out 330+ tons of ruined CDs, LPs, other goods, and fixtures before our over two-month cleanup was finished.

We had over two hours to have firemen safely remove property from Square Deal but they were not allowed to do so by SLO City FD leadership. Other than seven computer servers, all was destroyed, when much could have been saved in the time available. They had over 20 extra firefighters with nothing to do yet BC-1 Berryman refused to authorize salvage. If only we were shown the courtesy and professionalism everyone deserves, (and is called for in SLO City FD Emergency Operations Manual), much more could have been saved.

If only we were given fire service to defend Square Deal, it would have never caught on fire.