The Ghost Ship Fire Incident

       

       The Oakland Ghost Ship fire was a devastating fire incident that occurred at a warehouse called the Ghost Ship in Oakland, California. On December 2, a warehouse in Oakland, CA known as the Ghost Ship burst into flames during an electronic music concert taking the lives of 36 people. 

Many factors reduced the number of survivors, one being that there was no direct route from the stairs to the exit. The front stairway, which was built by the residence, lead into an open space with no direct root. After making it downstairs people then had make their way on the circuitous path to the doorway around pianos and furniture in a very enclosed space. According to resident Carmen Brito the Ghost Ship would have been very hard to navigate for people who did not live there. The Ghost Ship was not safe, and did not mean structural standards. There were propane tanks used to heat water near piles of flammable debris as well as an old electrical system that did not work, and constantly sparked. Rats also posed a problem, but were most likely not the cause of the fire. It has been determined that the fire was mostly caused by the buildings faulty power grid.
       This Ghost Ship fire has many similarities to the Triangle Factory Fire that happened in New York in 1911. On March 25, 1911 a fire consumed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory taking the lives of 146 people. This incident was largely the result of poor working conditions and inadequate fire safety precautions that were taken during the time. The owners of the factory locked the exit doors believing that their business would suffer if their workers tried to steal from the factory. The only other exit was the fire escape which could not bear the weight of all the workers, and was not a viable escape route. Which is similar to the lack of escape routes in the Ghost Ship incident, and raises the question: are the proper fire safety precautions being taken with buildings today?

Sources:

1. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/12/us/oakland-warehouse-ghost-ship-fire.html
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/08/us/the-oakland-fire-delving-into-what-happened-and-why.html
3. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/11/us/the-oakland-fire-what-we-know-about-the-warehouse-owner.html
4. https://trianglefire.ilr.cornell.edu/story/sweatshopsStrikes.html