Let's use our grief to generate action: Fire deaths are preventable if cities do their job

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On Jan. 13, a building in St. Louis’ Hamilton Heights neighborhood caught fire. Firefighters were dispatched and went inside to search for trapped inhabitants. During that search, the building’s roof collapsed, and St. Louis firefighter Ben Polson was killed, pinned by burning debris.

Every firefighter lost in the line of duty is a tragedy, but Polson’s death hit the city especially hard. He was a second-generation firefighter, and he had been with the department for just two years.

His death also bred frustration: His unit was scouring a building that had been officially unoccupied for two decades, labeled “condemned” by city officials, and cited for major code violations. And yet, in 2022, it still stood – an eyesore in the neighborhood, an unsafe shelter for the homeless and, that day, the site of a multistory blaze that claimed a 33-year-old firefighter’s life. 

Condemned – but not vacant 

Fires of this kind – in structures that repeatedly violate code but go unfixed, declared “condemned” yet still stand or those dubbed “vacant” yet still have inhabitants – are all too common, particularly in low-income areas. 

Philadelphia’s public housing authority knew for years that a row house that caught fire on Jan. 5 was over the safe occupancy limit, with 26 people in the building at the time of the fire, eight in the lower unit and 18 in the upper one. No action was taken before the blaze, and 12 members of an extended family died in the fire, including eight children.

Days later, a fire tore through the 19-story Twin Parks North West low-income high-rise in the Bronx. Here, too, the city had cited the building for dozens of violations in recent years, including broken smoke detectors, faulty ovens and inoperable ventilation systems. Most concerning: Six citations for failure to maintain the building’s self-closing doors. The building’s open doors created an unchecked pathway for the fire’s rapid spread, which killed 17 people.

And on Jan. 24, in Baltimore, three firefighters were killed and another critically wounded when a three-story burning rowhouse collapsed on them.

The building had been tagged as vacant for more than 10 years. Astonishingly, this was the second time this building injured firefighters, with three hurt while fighting a 2015 fire at the same address.

These recent fires have prompted national headlines and calls for legislation, but they are not a new problem in low-income neighborhoods. Research has long shown that lower socioeconomic status increases fire risk. A study demonstrated, for example, that counties with at least a fifth of the population below the poverty line had a staggering five times greater risk for death by smoke exposure. To be poor in America is to be at greater risk for many maladies – including losing one’s life to a fire.

But unlike other public policy challenges, risk of death from fire can be addressed through the application of laws and modest public safety interventions. Consider, for example, the unglamorous work of enforcing building codes. No candidate campaigns on a platform of code compliance, but more leaders ought to devote time, attention and resources there. Here’s why: Too often, the offices that monitor codes are understaffed and underfunded.

When urgent violations are identified, they can enter a lengthy backlog, where they may languish for years.

Years of failed code compliance

That’s what happened in the Bronx. In 2018, after a deadly high-rise fire, New York City passed a law mandating self-closing doors for residential buildings. For years, the Twin Parks building was in violation of that law– but nothing was done. 

Code compliance is too often treated as a punitive annoyance instead of as a proactive advancement of community health and safety. Residents, often renters, are also frequently afraid of contacting city agencies, for fear of retribution. Public policy leaders must use their bully pulpits and authority to shift this view and encourage outreach on unsafe conditions. There are equitable ways to enforce code, and public safety and public health leaders have developed approaches that unite compliance with overall community health and safety.

In St. Louis, for example, any city resident can call a fire department hotline and request a smoke detector for their home, which are required by law. Within days, the fire department will schedule a visit, professionally install the alarm, and offer occupants a comprehensive home safety survey that includes evacuation plans and information about proper use of heating devices.

A low-cost federal grant pays for the detectors and materials. Crucially, the homeowner or renter is neither fined nor cited.

Elected leaders can also bridge the information gap between responders and housing officials. First responders like firefighters and paramedics should be able to notify the city about major issues, like a building’s structural damage or ventilation issues – and expect prompt action from city departments. By extension, cities must ensure that first responders are alerted to major code violations in their area – when sections of a building’s roof, floors or stairwells are degraded or gone, for instance – so they can be aware of the danger.

And finally, cities must continue to join with federal, state and nonprofit partners to increase the availability of quality, low-income housing. The nation has a well-documented shortage of affordable homes, but this isn’t just a problem for the worst-off among us – it's a threat to our neighbors as well as first responders. As more people cram into an unsuitable space, the risk of fire compounds. Any effort to expand the nation’s housing stock should be framed not just as a moral imperative but as a safety measure – as vital as smoke alarms, sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers.

Within the firefighting community, word of these tragedies spread through text messages and social media. We mourn each and every one of the lives lost. But we’d like grief to generate action. Firefighters already perform extensive education and prevention efforts, and have for decades. But they can’t do it alone. If cities don’t act on code compliance and information sharing, we risk losing more members of our community and more firefighters in the years to come.

Days after firefighter Ben Polson was killed, the building that took his life was at last fully demolished. For his family, for those he protected and for those who wear the same uniform, that was days too late – a bitter testimony to an urgent, fixable problem in many of our nation’s cities.

Gregg Favre is the executive director of the St. Louis Area Regional Response System. He is the former chief of operations for the Missouri Department of Public Safety, a former command staff officer for the St. Louis Fire Department and a member of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.