PORTLAND, Maine — Acting City Manager Sheila Hill-Christian has named 11 people to a task force to review the city’s fire and codes inspection policies, a group that includes a decorated leader with the Boston Fire Department.
The review, which will seek to make policy recommendations in time for any changes to be accommodated in the fiscal year 2016 budget, comes partly in response to a Nov. 1 fire on Noyes Street that claimed the lives of six people.
Among those named to the task force are Joseph Fleming, deputy chief of the Boston Fire Department, as well as Portland Deputy Fire Chief Keith Gautreau and Portland Planning Board Chairman Stuart “Tuck” O’Brien.
“I want to thank Deputy Chief Fleming for agreeing to consult with us in the aftermath of this fire,” said Hill-Christian in a statement. “Mr. Fleming has internationally recognized expertise when it comes to fire prevention methods and fire code standards and has first-hand experience in dealing with similar tragedies.”
Other task force members will include: Acting Department of Health and Human Services Director Julie Sullivan; Tammy Munson and Jon Rioux, director and deputy director, respectively, of the city Inspections Division; Portland Neighborhood Prosecutor Rich Bianculli; Julie Gregor of the Portland Housing Authority; Carl Winslow and Crandall Toothaker of the Southern Maine Landlord Association; and Kathryn McGovern, a tenant attorney for Pine Tree Legal Assistance.
The task force will hold its first meeting on Dec. 3, and is expected to deliver a full report with recommendations on policy and practice changes for consideration by the City Council in February 2015.
Just after 7 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 1, firefighters received a report of a fire at the two-unit building at 20-24 Noyes St. The bodies of tenants David Bragdon Jr., 27, Ashley Thomas, 29, and Nicole Finlay, 26, as well as visitors to the building Christopher Conlee, 25, of Portland and Maelisha Jackson, 23, of Topsham, were found in the building.
A sixth victim, 29-year-old Rockland man Steven Summers, leapt from the upper floors of the 94-year-old building to escape. He was hospitalized with severe burns but succumbed to his injuries three days later.
The fire was Maine’s deadliest in four decades, and spurred scrutiny of the city’s fire code inspections process, in part because of multiple complaints lodged over the years by neighbors against the home, alleging dangerous buildups of trash and combustibles on the property and the addition of third-floor living space in what was supposed to be a two-unit building.
A 2013 consultant’s review of the Portland Fire Department suggested it have 10 full-time inspectors to keep up with regular fire code inspections for buildings across the city. A release by the city two weeks ago acknowledged that Portland’s Inspections Division has “a team of three inspectors that handle land use, building, plumbing and electrical inspections and one inspector that handles citizen complaints.”
The division conducted more than 850 inspections over the past year in response to complaints, but the 2013 department review by Maryland-based Public Safety Solutions Inc. noted that nearly 4,900 businesses and apartment buildings in the city should be inspected annually.
Less than a month after the tragic Portland fire, a trailer fire in Caribou this week claimed the lives of a mother and her three children.
