Charlotte Fire Department officials say they are making changes to prevent deadly construction fires.
Chief Reginald Johnson presented his plan to Charlotte City Council’s Housing, Safety and Community Committee this week in an after-action report of the May 2023 South Park fire that killed two construction workers who became trapped on an upper floor.“That was probably the largest fire in recent history, if not all the history, of the Charlotte Fire Department,” Johnson said. “We are not alone. There are a number of construction fires that have gone on for decades.
“This is the type of construction that’s going on all over the city, so it’s important that we have this conversation.”
One recommendation in the chief’s report is for state-level regulation updates in fire prevention and construction safety.
Fifteen construction workers were rescued and the fire chief called the crane operator a hero for using his platform to help transport workers safely to the ground before he was rescued.
Firefighters sprayed water on a crane to prevent it from collapsing.
“If the crane had collapsed, similar to what happened in Raleigh in 2017, you would have had significantly more property damage, but you very well could have had more loss of life.,” Johnson said. “Spraying water on that crane to keep it cool and keep it from collapsing was the right thing to do.”The South Park fire happened on May 18, 2023, at an under-construction seven-story, mid-rise building with two concrete floors and five stories of wooden construction, no working fire suppression systems and an open elevator shaft to the top floor, Johnson told the committee.
“What we call that is a vertical lumber yard,” the chief said.
The fire started in a trailer that was being used to spray insulation foam and parked about 20 feet from the open elevator shaft.
“Now you have runaway fire that has access to every floor of that building without any drywall … nothing to slow it down,” the chief explained. “
There was also confusion about where the missing workers were located. While firefighters were initially sent to the fourth floor, it turns out the men were on the sixth floor.
“I think in construction terms, when they said the fourth floor, they meant the fourth wood floor,” Johnson said. “Just a different way of counting floors.”
Reuben Holmes and Demonte Sherrill died in the fire despite “heroic” efforts by firefighters to rescue them.