Oakland Fire Department’s troubled building inspection effort

Two years before the deadly Ghost Ship warehouse fire, the Alameda County civil grand jury sounded the alarm about deficiencies in the Oakland Fire Department’s inspection bureau — saying the city wasn’t even trying to check a third of the 12,000 commercial properties that were supposed to be examined every year. Despite assurances from Fire Department brass that it would address the problem, the city continues to have far fewer inspectors on the streets than its own website would suggest, according to some on the force — leaving some buildings to be checked by rank-and-file firefighters on a catch-as-catch-can basis. [...] according to records that the Oakland Fire Department submitted to the civil grand jury for the watchdog panel’s 2014 report, fire inspectors were being sent to only 8,000 buildings a year — and couldn’t gain access to 2,000 of them. City fees to commercial operations were supposed to help pay for it, but budget cuts left City Hall unable to collect all the money. Grand jury members are barred from speaking individually about an investigation, but one source who had a hand in the report told us Fire Department officials “were quite concerned” about the missed inspections. [...] in an 11-page response to the grand jury at the time, Deloach Reed acknowledged that many of its findings were accurate and that the Fire Department was “working diligently” to correct the problems — including improving its revenue collections and filling jobs that had been frozen or eliminated because of budget cuts. The Fire Department’s website says the agency has seven fire code inspectors and an equal number of “vegetation management” inspectors, who specialize in making sure hillside neighborhoods have defensible spaces. [...] sources tell us the actual number of inspectors on the street may be about half that number — a problem some inside the Fire Department say was exacerbated by the defeat of a 2013 ballot measure to extend a city tax meant to reduce the threat of wildfires. Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California fire marshal’s office, said the state does not keep tabs on local inspection rates. Buildings are supposed to have unobstructed and marked entry and exit points, working fire sprinklers, functioning smoke alarms and fire extinguishers, and proper electrical wiring. Because of Oakland’s shortage of fire inspectors, neighborhood engine companies — like Engine 13 at 1225 Derby Ave., just around the corner from the Ghost Ship — now handle many inspections in between calls for fire and medical runs, according to department sources. [...] firefighters say the local stations generally steer clear of politically sensitive places like the arts-centered Ghost Ship — leaving them to be handled by inspectors in the overworked fire prevention bureau.