All the firefighting ventilation manuals imply that SLO City FD's actions with the fire hose stream through the front door make the most sense only if the intent was for the added air to assist in burning the roof off the structure to the left of The Sub's front door.

It appears that Berryman had a defensive strategy ("no entrance into the building" order) in effect from the very beginning. This explains why no firefighter EVER went into The Sub to see if anyone was inside, fight the fire, or evaluate the fire from inside. Captain Mark Vasquez confirms this in his narrative when he states 20+ minutes into the fire, he decides to " maintain the defensive strategy."

Chief Olson stated he met Richard Ferris (owner) on Side Alpha (Higuera Street) of the fire. This is not true. He met Ferris at 100 Pismo Street by the two cut open doors being used for additional ventilation (Charlie side of fire).

Chief Olson states he met a citizen who yelled at him something about the direction of the fire spread. Olson's statement is mostly not true. I saw Chief Olson after I approached the 100 Pismo Street door. I came over through the fire line and I introduced myself as the property owner. I did complain that Berryman was refusing to fight the fire and I did state at the very early part of the fire (just after they put out the window box fire) that the fire on the wall above the window box could have been put out with two garden hoses. This was true for the first minutes after the window box fire was extinguished.

I then asked Chief Olson to put a hose in the 100 Pismo Street door to defend the back wall between The Sub and Square Deal. He claimed he was afraid to get near the wall as he said he had just seen it move three or four inches because of all the water they were putting on the roof. I explained to him we had just finished a full earthquake retrofit and that this was a very solid building and, clearly, nothing had moved [see photo: rear Pismo Street wall after the fire]. I again begged and pleaded with him to put a stationary ground monitor against the back wall if he was afraid of using a firefighter. It was at this point he rudely told me that the conversation was unproductive and ordered me off my own property under threat of arrest! He would listen to no information about the building or the firewalls. He refused to defend the firewall to stop the spread of the fire into Square Deal - defensively or at all.

Chief Olson states he then moved to the Pismo Street side, but he was already there after talking to me.

Chief Olson states Division Charlie was attempting to cut off the fire by directing hose lines through the openings of the exterior wall to the rear of the retail area of The Sub. THIS IS, AGAIN, MOSTLY UNTRUE. The only openings are the rear door and the sliding door at 100 Pismo Street which Olson put a token 5 seconds of water through. Lots of video confirms no real action was actually taken [see photos: #1-6/no action taken]. Maybe that's why he stated "attempted" because it never happened. If it had happened, the fire would not have left The Sub! Square Deal would never have caught fire if any real effort was made to defend the back firewall as I had asked. Square Deal would not have caught fire if Olson actually did what he is pretending he did.

Olson did have the crew spray water through the large sliding door - only to hit the back of the wall that was just five feet away - Good showmanship but not firefighting. He could have sent crew through this door to safely fight the fire because it was on the other side of a firewall from The Sub main room - but he refused to try [see video: fireman with no mask walking into this door as it was so safe].

Olson claims his inspection found there was a significant volume of burning debris - (A couple spinner racks and other merchandise in the middle of the floor area caught fire during the initial burning caused by the first unknown incendiary device). A 15-second water spray would have completely put this small fire out if water had been applied. Water could have put out the small amount of merchandise fire through the front door or either rear doorway, from inside the beaded curtain room on the other side of a firewall, or from the women's clothing room behind a different 12-hour firewall - all without entering the part of the building that was on fire, if they had only tried.

The "burning material" was approximately 20' from the Pismo Street door and approximately 10' from the Higuera Street door, and was an easy-to-put-out, insignificant part of the fire which could not burn high enough to reach the roof. The YouTube video shows how careful SLO City FD was NOT to put water on the fire when they put the fire hose stream through the front door (primary ventilation opening). They would only put water to the left where nothing was on fire [see YouTube video: no water on fire].

At this point, the fire was just starting on the main ceiling or roof to the left of The Sub's front door. It was still mainly venting toward the center vent in front and the opened roof hatch. The underside of all the ceilings is the bottom of the roof. All our ceilings are exposed and easy to hit with water from a fire hose.

The fire was not yet significantly in the roof of the main room near the burning front portion and no way near the roof in the rear section.

Chief Olson's narrative at this point (Page 8 - Paragraph 3), becomes disjointed. He refers to the wall at the back of the window box as impeding water streams. It is true it impairs streams but as there was no fire on the other side of the wall at this time, it is not relevant. (If there had been a fire on the inside of the front room, the same wall would have impeded the fire and it couldn't have gotten to the window box.) Once the fire in the window boxes was easily and quickly put out, it was only burning in the front wall above the window box. The room behind the window box did not even partially burn until much later when the roof collapsed into it and scorched some of the fixtures - Again, the YouTube and other video evidence absolutely confirms that there was no sign of fire burning behind the window boxes after they were put out [see video: no fire behind the window boxes].

Even today, the window box rear wall is mostly intact and not burned at all from the interior side. It is still at the scene and can still be examined.

How any of these are factors to not fight the fire is puzzling. Not only was the 100 Pismo Street rear door to The Sub wide open, so was the huge rolling door to the right. The rolling door led into the beaded curtain room (protected by a firewall) where the fire did not reach ever [see video: beaded curtain room after fire/easy access to main room]. The beaded curtain room never burned and was never involved in the fire - So, it was clearly safe to fight the fire from this location.

Chief Olson mentions he feared the electric service drop right beside the 100 Pismo Street door but leaves out the fact that power was disconnected by PG&E, so it was irrelevant to anything going on.

Chief Olson also leaves out that he or Berryman ordered his crews to cut both sealed-over doorways in the little 283 Higuera Street building (our blacklight room) to increase ventilation [see photo: cut open doorways]. At the onset of the fire, Berryman had broken all the windows into 283 Higuera Street, well before he could have had a ventilation plan in place to attempt to save the building. Why suck the fire into these two small buildings? Why use chainsaws to cut the entire back wall open to add air when the metal roof portion of 283 Higuera Street would not burn? [see photo: rear of 283 Higuera Street cut open].

After cutting both rear doors open on the 283 Higuera Street building, nothing prevents firemen from going in through the blacklight room into the women's clothing room, and from behind a 12-hour masonry firewall, putting water on any fire in the main room.

Chief Olson continues, stating he observed our three 27' van trailers with storage under and between them. Mostly true - We did have neat, organized storage under the trailers. Between them was a clear, open space about 12' wide that led to a 9'x9' roll-up door. This was our outside work area and a hose through the roll-up door (from the outside) would have stopped the fire on the dock and prevented it from reaching the comic locker. No water was ever put through this 9'x9' roll-up door and no attempt to stop the fire was done through this huge easy-to-access opening. The door was opened at the beginning of the fire to draft extra air into Square Deal but not used to put water on the fire [see photos: open roll-up doorway/fire burning & no effect through doorway].

Olson also does not mention our 5' wide by 6' tall bright yellow Fire Department-approved flammable cabinet that had all our flammables within (or on top of) because this contradicts his (totally false) TV statement that we had gasoline and flammables in our building which contributed to the rapid spread of fire.

Chief Olson states when on Pismo Street, before Square Deal burned, the smoke was so thick that the sun was blocked out. At this time, Square Deal was not yet on fire and ALL smoke was downwind from Square Deal. Later, when Square Deal burned, this was true - but NOT at this early point in the fire [see video: rear with no smoke].

At no point during the first two hours of the fire was this rear Pismo Street area too black with smoke to see, (downwind at times was but this is not downwind from The Sub portion of the fire). At this early point, smoke was not that thick. The first really thick smoke came out from the front of The Sub when SLO City FD put the fire hose stream through the front door [see video: smoke erupting], and overhead streams through the roof, blowing in oxygen and fanning the fire. This smoke did not affect Pismo Street at this early point in the fire.

Chief Olson states he then walked to the rear of Quality Fabrics and observed what appeared to be a firewall at the back of the property. Olson and Berryman certainly already knew where the firewall was before the fire - They appear to plan from the beginning to burn everything to this stop point. Pretending to discover a firewall at this late point seems insincere at best, and deceptive at worst, because Berryman set his command post at this very firewall.

On Page 9 - Paragraph 3, Olson again claims crews directed fire lines through exterior openings. Other than the "showboat" hose through the upper window above the Pismo shipping door, no hose tried to effectively fight the fire through any exterior openings as he states.

There were a number of effective exterior stop points to save the comic locker but none were used [see monograph: 11 Basic Stop Points into SDRS from Rear].

Chief Olson claims Deputy Chief Jeff Gater and crew took active fire lines into the 150 Pismo Street entrance to Square Deal building and fought the fire. Deputy Chief Gater claims it was Five Cities Fire Authority E-6692 that fought inside the building - Both are NOT TRUE. Photos and videos of the fire never showed any charged fire lines going into the fire other than during the initial softening. Two uncharged lines were put in, then one was removed and one was abandoned. Olson also states that earlier it was declared a defensive fire - where no one goes in the building.

Who authorized Five Cities E-6692 to go into the building? - No one takes responsibility, yet all claim they allowed no firefighters inside (defensive strategy). How can both be true?

This is a completely made up tale to discredit the truth that no firemen ever fought the fire inside of either The Sub or Square Deal.

On Page 9 - Paragraph 6, Olson claims he again encountered Mr. Ferris(?) and I repeated the two garden hoses claim - NOT TRUE - only once did we have those words. He mentions the second complete conversation we never had. (Maybe he is confusing Mr. Ferris with Mr. Hanson whom he took into the back of 150 Pismo Street at around 12:30pm.)

Chief Olson's narrative quickly goes from around 12:30-1:00pm to late at night, as do all the firefighter narratives. Nothing is noted about the fire from 1:30pm until nearly 11:00pm - Strange. The entire Square Deal fire (the main fire!) is not mentioned? Strange how all the narratives end together and ALL leave out over eight hours of firefighting and burning the Square Deal building.

Stranger yet, it took Chief Olson and the other firefighters over five days to write and coordinate their first narratives. Their narratives are supposed to be independent and not coordinated with each other. They are supposed to be written as soon as possible after the fire so memory is as clear as possible and not contaminated by conversations with other firefighters. Other narratives took over ten days to write.

We reviewed seven years' worth of earlier narratives and found The Sub fire is the ONLY fire where the first narratives were five days after and the following narratives were ten days after the fire.

Never does Chief Olson's narrative explain his decision to not fight the fire in The Sub except when he falsely claims The Sub was too full of storage and stacking to safely go inside to put out the fire [see video: TV footage of Olson claiming debris & storage in The Sub]. This is a huge decision and he does not explain his refusal to aggressively fight the fire in the first 30 minutes. He later issues a press release claiming he went inside and fought the fire. Both statements are not true - It can't be a defensive fire and be an offensive fire at the same time in the same building! You also can't refuse to go in because of excess storage, then claim you went in aggressively - Both cannot be true!

Firefighter Rules And Guidelines

The basis for the comments in this writing is taken from Firefighter's Rules of Engagement, the San Francisco Fire Department Ventilation Manual, and San Luis Obispo City Fire Emergency Operations Manual. These are standards that SLO City FD supposedly uses.