West Tenn. officials offer safety tips after deadly Oakland warehouse fire

JACKSON, Tenn. — A deadly weekend fire at a warehouse turned arts space claimed 36 lives, and the number is expected to grow.

Madison County Fire Marshal Don Friddle on Monday examined what he thinks went wrong.

“It’s really a recipe for disaster,” Friddle said. “From what I see, there are several contributing factors to the large number of deaths. One is that they shouldn’t have been in the building to start with due to lack of sprinkler systems and fire alarm systems.”

Friddle says the building wasn’t designed for an event with that many people and had a large amount of combustible items inside.

“As a result of what we would consider an illegal occupancy, and what that consists of is somebody moving into a building and develop a different type of occupancy than what it was designed for,” Friddle said.

And it’s important to make sure the building is up to code.

“If you’re throwing a party or a large party and it’s not in your home, then the building should be designed as a class A assembly occupancy,” Friddle said.

City of Jackson Plans Examiner Greg Rowland says it’s crucial to get the OK before hosting an event.

“They need to come up here and get a walk-through inspection, and that allows us and our inspectors to go out, meet the people, look at the building and make sure it’s up to come for what they want to use it for,” Rowland said.

And a working sprinkler system is a must-have.

“It’s one of the best things to have on a building if you have a fire,” Rowland said. “That sprinkler system kicks on and, number one, buys time and gets everyone out of the building safely.”

“This time of year, everyone is so excited about celebrating the holidays sometimes they forget about safety issues,” Friddle said. “People really need to utilize just good common sense.”