Burning through The Sub's roof:

The fire was burning and venting out through the still open louver above the front room in the front portion of The Sub. It was also venting out the access hatch that had been opened by firefighters on the roof over the front room. The fire was also venting out the main roof louver vent so there was no lack of ventilation to limit an interior attack. To have the fire move into The Sub’s main room, SLOFD leadership put the fire hose through the center of the front door, opened up the roof, and put a master stream of water through the overhead opening in order to drive air to feed the fire on the underside of the roof. [see video: hose through door].

After 40 minutes (or more) of fanning the fire, SLOFD caused the fire to burn the rest of the way through the left portion of The Sub’s roof.

Burn all roofs completely seemed to be the goal:

The sequence of photos showing the burning of 283 Higuera Street makes clear that SLOFD put no water on the fire until the roof was gone and almost everything was burned. This seems to be SLOFD leadership’s policy. They let the blacklight room (283 Higuera Street) burn over 20 minutes before they would allow the two nearby hoses to put the fire out. When they did finally put water on the fire, it only took three seconds to put the fire out. [see video].

The metal building between The Sub main building and 283 Higuera Street, a former gas station building (not flammable) would not burn – SLOFD leadership broke all the windows and cut the sealed doorways in 283 Higuera Street to open it up for more air – but it was still not enough. They took a chainsaw to the Pismo Street wall and cut an 8’ vertical slash in the wall to better fuel air to the fire. The reason to add air to the fire appears to be an attempt at burning the metal roof.

SLO City FD leadership appears to have caused most of the damage!

If SLOFD leadership had never taken over our fire scene and had done nothing, only The Sub would have burned.

We feel that a single volunteer fire truck and crew, if allowed to fight and engage this fire promptly, would have had the fire out in five minutes (except for mopping up)…

If only a volunteer fire company had arrived at our fire, and we would have only lost the front portion of The Sub.

By encouraging the merchandise and back wall in The Sub’s main room to burn fiercely (with air blown in through the front door by a fire hose on spread pattern and the two draft holes above), the “fanned" fire burned through the wall separating The Sub from the poster/CD staging loft adjoining the main Square Deal Recordings & Supplies building. It came slowly as, at first, the piles of cassettes kept falling into the area where the wall was burning through while slowing it down.

All the extra air blown in acted like a bellows and increased that fire greatly, raising the fire temperature and causing it to burn through up into the cassette/CD staging loft behind SDRS.

Without the extra air blown in by the water hose through the front door and overhead master streams through roof openings, the wall between The Sub and SDRS would not have burned through. It took the continuous bellows effect of all the blown in air and total refusal of SLOFD leadership to put water on the clearly visible, easy-to-reach-from-the-outside fire (which was burning to the right of the front door) to cause the burn-through. (This was easily done even with a defensive strategy in place.)

The fire then burned along the underside of the loft roof and into the apartment at 150 Pismo Street (with the aid of a 4’x4’ draft hole cut into the apartment roof along Pismo Street). If the apartment had been defended from the exterior through the two windows only, the fire could not have gotten through.

Finally, the fire burns into the back of SDRS into the poster room. If a pair of firemen had been stationed to monitor this, it could have been stopped with a garden hose.

At any time up to 90 minutes into the fire, one hose spraying the back interior wall of The Sub through the 100 Pismo Street door would have stopped the fire dead at this firewall. Even an unmanned ground monitor in the 100 Pismo Street beaded curtain display room or rear door of The Sub would have 100% stopped the fire from ever leaving The Sub main room.

When Richard Ferris (owner) asked Fire Chief Olson to do this and explained why, he was again ordered to stop interfering with public safety and threatened with arrest.

An interior attack could have also been conducted by going into the cut open doors, or the front doorway of 283 Higuera Street (blacklight room), and putting water on any part of The Sub’s main interior through the 36" doorway behind a 13" masonry firewall – a totally safe location from which to put water onto the fire. This building did not catch fire until over an hour later. There was no effort to defend either small structure at 283 Higuera Street.

At no point during the 12 hours of the fire did any water get put on the actual fire burning on the underside of the roofs or any merchandise burning in the building.

If we could have fought the fire ourselves with no help or interference from SLOFD, we would have 100%, for sure, saved all of SDRS and most of The Sub – Buckets of water, sheets of plywood, and people who cared would have done way better than SLOFD leadership did!

SLOFD leadership is taking up the space of actual professional firefighters. Until leadership is changed, they will victimize other San Luis Obispo residents to ensure their own safety, and ease of job, while claiming credit and glory for work they did not do.

All the firemen knew it was a turndown:

Towards the end of the fire, when it was heading toward the comic locker, Ferris found a fireman who seemed to listen. Ferris explained the two-level nature of the comic locker roof – that it was a big refrigerator with ample cork insulation. Ferris further pointed out that the only way the fire could get to the building was along the underside of the dock roof which would be easy to defend even from outside the building. The fireman was very interested, then suddenly seemed to remember it did not matter.

The fireman told Ferris they knew everything they needed to know and ordered him back and away, refusing to speak further with him.

On a defensive fire, there is no reason to cut holes in the roof – Berryman declared it defensive from the beginning, so cutting holes in the roof is only to help in burning down the structure.

Communication with San Luis Obispo Fire Department personnel during the fire:

• The SLOFD personnel knew everything they wanted to know and would take no input from the start of the fire forward. They appeared to arrive with a burndown already decided, as there was nothing about the structure they wanted or needed to know.
• Every offer to help with much needed information was repulsed with arrogance and extreme authoritarianism.
• Only if they planned to burn down all five attached, but separate, structures before the fire started does this make sense.
• For over 30 minutes the fire only burned in the front upper part of The Sub. Other than initially dousing the two window boxes where the fire started, NO effort, no re-evaluation, no size-up, and no firefighter ever went into The Sub either to fight the fire or to evaluate fighting the fire.
• The command post was set up with no view of the fire scene.
• Quality Fabrics & Supply Company, next to SDRS, was never in any danger due to a 13" brick wall (5’ taller than the Quality Fabrics roof), a 9" block wall, and their metal roof. Instead of sealing the Higuera Street front door to save the inventory from smoke damage, SLOFD leadership insisted it be left open so they could save 30 seconds walking through Quality Fabrics building instead of around. They had full access through Quality Fabrics rear door so there was no need to damage Quality Fabrics inventory of fabric and foam. SLOFD leadership had zero concern for the damage they did to Quality Fabrics and no reason to do the damage in the first place. Carelessly using one side of Quality Fabrics roof as a walkway (when going onto SDRS roof was the same at either end) causing damage and requiring a new roof. In addition, careless water usage on the roof damaged the inventory. Quality Fabrics had to do a total roof job to repair the damage.

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