2-Year Effort To Inspect All City Apartments Completed

Colorado Springs authorities estimate that 22 percent of city fires happen in apartments and other multifamily dwellings, while about 20 percent of city residents live in such structures.

That statistic, and the January 2007 Castle West fire, led the Colorado Springs Fire Department to rededicate its efforts to improve fire safety at apartments and formulate better floor plans.

Fire Chief Rich Brown said the Department recently completed a two-year cycle of checking the city’s 3,100 known apartment buildings, and that the effort turned up no surprises.

“We saw what we usually see — in some cases, doors that are blocked open when they shouldn’t be, smoke alarms not properly working, extinguishers that have not been looked at for five years,” Brown said.

However, along with the usual safety inspections, Brown said the Department formulated a pre-fire plan for each building that firefighters can access when needed.

“While we were there, we looked at things like hydrants and roofs, to get a different view of going into a structure in a nonemergency setting,” he said.

Brown said the plan also is helpful for firefighters who may work at different stations and be unfamiliar with apartment buildings in those districts.

“Whether I’m at a different station responding to a different complex, or if it’s a complex I haven’t visited for a while, or if I’m at a complex during a fire as opposed to a nonemergency situation, this plan helps firefighters and residents be safer,” Brown said.

What makes conducting inspections and formulating a pre-fire plan especially challenging, Brown said, is that there is no crew dedicated solely to those tasks. Brown said all firefighters share the responsibility between regular duty and training.

For instance, Brown said three stations in particular — 7, 8 and 11 — are the busiest in calls for service, but also conduct the most inspections, because those stations are located within the highest concentrations of apartment buildings.

Brown said other inspections, such as those conducted in commercial buildings and other residential dwellings, usually are performed by the city fire marshal.

Firefighters will take a break before resuming the next inspection cycle, Brown said.