As Deputy Chief Jeff Gater rushes to the scene of The Sub fire to help with command, his urgency is so great that he first finishes a non-emergency routine transport assignment. Obviously, he felt there was no hurry to get to the fire or even let the ambulance company do its job. Deputy Chief Gater states his job was to keep the fire out of the apartment and Square Deal Recordings & Supplies warehouse, and claims three hose lines were deployed. Three hose lines might have been deployed but at no time did these effectively fight the fire either offensively or defensively. Early in the fire, when it was still in the front of The Sub, two hose lines were taken into Square Deal. We were told they were "exploratory" lines only in case firemen needed them. When the fire started to slowly come into Square Deal, they withdrew the main good line and left/abandoned an older line in the building.

• Never did these hoses hook up to an engine and apply water inside of Square Deal
• Never were they used to put water on the burning fire or fight the fire through appropriate door or window openings. The "show-time" hose that put water through the window above the rear shipping door had no effect on the fire because there was none there during most of the time the hose was used. It just hits the comic locker masonry wall, 9' from the window. Even the areas by and beyond this window were totally burned when the fire finally reached the shipping doors (about 9pm at night).

The fire was BLOWN through the poster/CD staging area (above The Subs Dark Arts display in the beaded curtain room) by the air from the fire hose that had been put through the front door of The Sub, but only to the left not to the right where the fire burned through. The fire moved across the roof over the poster/CD staging area and spread to the apartment roof and through the opening from the poster staging room into the poster/CD stock room. The cassette room and poster room are former refrigeration rooms for produce with ceilings slightly under 7'6" tall. One is full of rolled posters and flat sheets of high-end graphics; the other is full of (approximately 225,000) cassettes.

Deputy Chief Gater states he became acutely aware of "vertically arranged, high piled, rack based combustible storage." This means he never went into the portion of the building where the fire came into Square Deal. He is describing and exaggerating the center 32' of the main building only – (This portion is described one way or another in most narratives yet is less than 20% of our building). No description of any other part of interior at Square Deal is in any firefighter narrative.

Deputy Chief Gater does not mention the firewall 36' from the rear of Square Deal that separates Square Deal's main building into two fire areas front and rear – Guess he didn't notice. It is the one Chief Olson refers to on TV stating he saw it when he went inside.

Our last inspection from SLOFD was 12/11/15 and during every inspection SLOFD members comment on their thoughts regarding the fire load in our building. Why is it a surprise? Shouldn't Deputy Chief Gater be familiar with the building and its layout? There was no plan or planning to fight the fire. Were we not a target hazard building that required plans prepared in advance to fight the fire?

No awareness of the interior details of our structure and no effort to stop the fire. We should have been a TARGET HAZARD which requires a written plan including water flow, ventilation, and special hazards – We have asked for this plan three times with P.R.A. requests and were told by SLOFD that they have none. Only when we used the term "target hazard" did they respond with the details we had requested three times before.

Deputy Chief Gater's comment appears more unreal when you realize there are no cassettes, sheet plastic, or CDs stored in the mezzanine or anywhere in the main building. Deputy Chief Gater describes shelves or racks but there are no piles anywhere. The main floor had almost no fire load and had nothing stored – It is all work space. The floor was desks and shipping work areas except for under the east side mezzanine which contained LP records on pulling shelves – The loft, shelves, and LP records survived the fire and were not burned. Unfortunately, a majority were ruined by all the water SLOFD used from overhead hoses put directly into ventilation openings to add air to push the fire along the roof for a better burn.

If Deputy Chief Gater had actually tried to defend Square Deal, he would be describing the two refrigeration rooms on the "L" portion of the building where there are low ceilings and no racks stacked high. This is where the fire came into the back "L" portion of the main Square Deal building.

SLOFD was told on numerous occasions that LP records do not burn unless you keep a flame on them. SLOFD leadership seemed to be afraid of all plastics equally and not know the difference between plastics that are a big fire danger or plastics that are a small danger.

This portion of Deputy Chief Gater's narrative shows he never tried to stop the progress of the fire.

• No mention of the poster room and all the rolled paper graphics and posters – All located in a 20'x20' room (former refrigerator) with a low roof where the fire came into the back of Square Deal
• No mention of a single detail of the "L" wing of Square Deal where the fire entered the building and they should have stationed a firefighter team to defend
• No mention of the cassette room at all
• No awareness of what the area even looks like to be able to describe where the fire entered Square Deal and where Deputy Chief Gater claims to have been assigned to defend

Deputy Chief Gater mentions "an attempt was also made to locate and remove the Square Deal computer equipment servers through the rear of the building." He does not mention that the attempt was made accompanied by Raymond Hanson, Warren Ferris, and trailing them, Sharliss Ferris. They were led into the rear of Square Deal without respirators or any safety gear. They went as far as the shipping area in our main building (~40' into main structure) and when Chief Olson saw firefighter activity in the front of Square Deal, he suddenly reversed course.

We clearly remember it was Chief Olson who led the three people into the building. Chief Olson went on TV and stated he went into the building and saw a firewall. It was not Deputy Chief Gater but Chief Olson who went into the building with Raymond, Warren, & Sharliss.

Raymond Hanson was in the hospital on January 4, 2016 with a respiratory attack caused by this unprotected trip into the building. His respiratory issues had been in remission to the point that none of us even knew he had serious problems. Since the fire, he has not been the same!

When Deputy Chief Gater (actually Chief Olson) led Raymond Hanson, Warren Ferris, and Sharliss Ferris into Square Deal to attempt to reach the servers, there were no firefighters in the building at all and no hose going into the "L" wing where the fire came into the building – And no major smoke or heat in the "L" wing. This means the fire, at this point, had not entered Square Deal, and no firefighters were inside and no interior defensive actions were being considered.

Out of the 80-foot length of the Square Deal main building, the first 32' is office. The next 32' contains two mezzanines: The one above shipping contains bundles of cardboard for resale and the other one contains DVD and Blu-ray cases made from polyethylene, polypropylene, and polycarbonates. None of these plastics are highly flammable – They all have ignition points considerably above wood and paper. The floor of this mezzanine was relatively untouched and intact after the fire. Most of the plastic cases were left unburned but partially melted after the fire and had to be trashed. About half of the cardboard burned and did burn approximately one-quarter of the cardboard mezzanine floor as well. The entire ground floor, merchandise, and desks did not burn and were only charred when flaming parts dropped from the burning roof. We found that most everything was intact but scorched after we dug down through the roof debris. (The middle 32' section is the only portion of the Square Deal building that firefighters describe – When they describe the interior, they can all describe only this section.) Entering from the rear of Square Deal, the first 20' is the rear dock and mezzanine, then 16' of open ceiling with a shipping station, the Cheap Thrills processing area, and entry to the cassette and poster rooms. No firefighter describes this portion of the building they would have entered through if they had gone in to fight the fire as described.

Deputy Chief Gater states heat and smoke conditions changed radically an hour after they entered the building is not true. They entered to soften the building over two hours before the fire reached Square Deal. This was a roof fire! The roof was burned linearly from the front of The Sub to the back. The roof fire stayed in The Sub. The merchandise burning in The Sub to the right of the front door was fanned by the air driven in from fire hoses that only put water to the left (where no floor items were on fire – just the roof). This caused the fire to burn through the wall and go up into the poster/CD storage loft above The Sub beaded curtain room and across the underside of the roof. It slowly and evenly progressed across the apartment roof onto the main dock at the same time it burned through the doorway into the poster room in "L" portion of main building. Once the poster room went up (rolled posters and flat sheet paper burn well), there would be no doubt that the fire was in Square Deal. But Deputy Chief Gater's narrative never even mentions the two refrigeration rooms with low ceilings in the "L" wing of the main building where the fire came into the rear of Square Deal main building. It was as if he was never there. Certainly it proves he made no attempt to stop the fire as no firefighter narrative describes the structure accurately – most is not described at all.

There is only one breach opening in the firewall at the rear of Square Deal – Full parapet firewalls completely separate the main building from The Sub except for the opening between the poster stock room and the poster/CD staging area that is over a portion of The Sub's beaded curtain room. The parapet walls all held the fire back – It was the burn-through caused by SLOFD that spread the fire to Square Deal.

Deputy Chief Gater then states conditions continued to deteriorate: Translated = Fire is finally burning into Square Deal "L" wing of main building (that was left totally undefended) and into the apartment via underside of the roof (also not defended).

There is only one breach in front of Square Deal and I pleaded with Berryman to defend this opening when I first reported to him 12-15 minutes after the fire started. I tried to explain this opening and its significance but Berryman cut me off and stated, "We are not going to take any risk to save your property." When I tried to continue explaining the significance of this opening, he ordered me away stating I was interfering with public safety. He would not listen to any details of the building or its firewalls.

Had we been allowed to participate in defending our own building, we would have cut two 1-1/8" plywood plugs and sealed the breach into the back of Square Deal, thereby saving our building.

However, SLOFD would not listen to us nor let us help because they never, for one second, tried to save anything!

Deputy Chief Gater's statement that several efforts were made by three crews using hose lines to stop the fire is not true – If they were ever within sight of the 24"x60" opening in the rear wall, they would have easily stopped the fire. When it came into the poster stock room, it had to burn for a while to burn through the insulated roof of the refrigeration room to even get at the underside of the Square Deal "L" wing roof where it eventually got to.

Once the poster room caught fire, the heat and fire would have next eventually ignited the cassettes (polystyrene) in the semi-adjoining cassette room by radiant/convection temperature.

This would have then caught the Square Deal "L" wing roof on fire. This would have taken some time to build up. Photos seem to show that ventilation holes were cut above both rooms and through the ceiling of the refrigerator rooms to aid the rapid spread of the fire.

The layout and construction of the "L" wing of Square Deal main building is such that the narrative which Deputy Chief Gater gives is impossible to have happened.

Deputy Chief Gater states Five Cities Fire Authority E-6692 reported fire had gone over and behind them, between them and their exit. This team initially was assigned to explore and soften Square Deal at the very beginning of the fire in the front of The Sub. They were out of the structure almost 90 minutes before the fire came into Square Deal. After softening, no fire team ever took a hose full of water into the building – this is hard to understand.

E-6692 stating (that while inside the middle 32' of Square Deal main building) they would knock down the fire in one area only to have it spring up in another pretends a situation which could not and did not exist – supposedly fought by firefighters who were not even in the building at the time. This is a total fabrication to claim credit for work they refused to do. Anyone standing in this portion of Square Deal can easily see the statement is a total fabrication – physically not possible.

Why would firemen from Five Cities be sent into a structure that had been declared defensive only? Why would Five Cities firefighters be sent in instead of SLOFD firefighters?

Deputy Chief Gater stated crews were to fight fire through doorways and windows yet, other than the window over the rear roll-up door ("water for show"), no significant water was ever put through windows or doors at the rear of the building to attempt to stop the fire. A hose put through the main apartment window could have stopped the fire at the edge of the apartment.

If a firefighter had used a hose from outside the building at the big roll-up door in the center of the main dock, he could have easily saved 2/3 of the dock roof and area as well as prevented the fire from ever reaching the comic locker. No effort was made at any point to stop the progress of the fire.

The main rear roll-up door was left closed to conceal the fact that they had opened the only door into the comic locker to supply air to the fire when it finally reached the locker. Without leaving the 48" wide refrigerator door wide open, there was virtually no air flow into the former refrigerator room serving as the comic locker.

Deputy Chief Gater stating, "Once the fire was nearing control," means that everything was finally burned.

Deputy Chief Gater states two 100' sections of fire hose were left behind. This is not accurate – The nice new section was removed, the other older section we recovered during the fire cleanup.

During cleanup, we looked for the two oxygen bottles described as abandoned by Five Cities E-6692 but they were nowhere to be found in the debris. The cleanup of the main building was done manually with shovels and hand tools, so if they were there, they would have been found. Our cleanup crew is very experienced in salvage and set aside all physical items recovered for our evaluation and salvage. Two oxygen bottles and a large brass nozzle would have been hard to miss!

We do not doubt the bottles and nozzle are missing – We just know they were not left in the structure or we would have found them.

During the two hours before the fire reached Square Deal, Deputy Chief Gater allows no salvage of content even though there were 20+ firefighters on Pismo Street with nothing to do!

Now that we see Deputy Chief Gater is retiring, we understand why he admits to going into the rear of Square Deal for the servers in place of Chief Olson who was the one who went inside. Being retired, Gater can avoid the consequences for the actions taken by Chief Olson who would be affected, if the truth comes out.

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.