Oakland Records Give New Glimpses Into History Preceding Ghost Ship Fire

Firefighters from Engine Company 13, on the next block from the Ghost Ship warehouse, were alerted the building was on fire at 11:24 the night of Friday, Dec. 2, 2016. The warehouse, which city documents released Wednesday confirm had been the target of a long series of complaints to police and code enforcement officials, was about to become synonymous with an unspeakable tragedy.

Company 13 -- Capt. Heather Mozdean and three firefighters -- responded to the alarm within seconds. As the crew opened the station's truck bay to drive to the scene just 100 yards away, they could see smoke pouring from the Ghost Ship building.

The engine "arrived on scene approximately 60 seconds after the initial call to find 2 story warehouse with heavy black smoke pushing from the doors and windows," Mozdean wrote in one of the documents the city made public.

In her brief account, Mozdean describes her crew's attempt -- along with a force of firefighters who had rushed to the scene from other Oakland stations -- to get into the building and fight the fire. But she notes that her engine's personnel were never able to penetrate more than 40 feet into the jumble of piano and other paraphernalia inside the warehouse.

After about 30 minutes, Mozdean noted, she and her crew "exited the building to swap [oxygen] bottles at which time I did a face-to-face with IC [incident commander] stating that the interior lines were not capable of extinguishing in a safe manner due to advanced fire, smoke conditions and tremendous fire load."

Firefighters were withdrawn from the building, where 36 partygoers had died, and went into "defensive mode' -- an attempt to contain the damage from the blaze and prevent it from spreading further.

However, the damage done to the city of Oakland's reputation -- for its apparent failure to respond to a long history of complaints about trash, the conversion of the Ghost Ship into an illegal residence, the use of the site for night-time music events, and other issues -- was just beginning.

The documents the city released Wednesday came in response to repeated media requests from KQED, the Bay Area News Group, the East Bay Express, Los Angeles Times and others. The trove of records, many of which confirm earlier reports, show:

• The documents also show that the Oakland Fire Department had not conducted safety inspections in the Ng properties on 31st Avenue -- which also include an auto body shop next to the Ghost Ship -- since 2010. It has been previously reported that the city has no records of either fire safety or building code inspections for at least the last 30 years.
• Nineteen separate Oakland Police Department calls for service at two addresses associated with the warehouse, 1305 and 1315 31st Ave., in the city's Fruitvale district. Among those calls was a March 2015 incident in which officers responded to a 2 a.m. call that a rave, complete with illegal alcohol sales, was occurring in the building and that 15 people inside were not being allowed to leave. One of the responding officers confirmed the situation, notified an unidentified person at the Ghost Ship that the event was in violation of city ordinances but decided not to issue a citation.
• The documents also fleshed out earlier reports that the warehouse and an adjacent property owned by Oakland landlord Chor Ng had an extensive history of code violations, including blight and possible illegal building conversions. All told, the city records show as many as 15 code complaints and 45 code inspections at the property. The exact number of complaints and inspections and how many of them concerned with the warehouse is hard to determine because the records are sometimes unclear about the actual address of alleged violations.

This post will be updated.