A day after D.C.'s police chief issued an executive order to address gaps in reporting unsafe living conditions, the D.C. fire chief issued his own executive order.
Fire Chief Gregory Dean ordered, effective immediately, when a D.C. police officer reports an unsafe fire code violation, the fire department will notify the deputy chief of operations who will then dispatch a battalion chief to the scene.
Police Chief Peter Newsham's executive order requires a police supervisor to respond to the scene when unsafe conditions are reported by an officer. The supervisor must notify the fire liaison officer for D.C. Fire and EMS about the location and the potential safety threat, according to the order.
Officers must also send emails to the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs explaining any alleged housing violations they see.
Last month, 9-year-old Yafet Solomon and an unidentified man died after a row house fire on Kennedy Street NW.
A police officer reported unsafe conditions at the row house to the fire department and the DCRA in March, five months before the fire.
The officer sent five emails over two months to D.C. Fire & EMS and DCRA before an inspector from DCRA went to the house. The inspector visited three times but could not get inside because nobody was home.
According to a police report dated March 22, the house had no lit exit signs and no working smoke detectors, and the one fire extinguisher was not tagged. There were also too many makeshift doors with locks that would make it hard to exit in an emergency, the report said.
The report said that the building used to be a pharmacy, but the basement had been changed into a rooming house, and office space looked like it was being used as a seamstress shop.
Authorities have yet to determine an official cause of the Kennedy Street fire but said the row house's narrow halls, broken smoke detectors and barred exits were a deadly combination. Iron security bars on the windows prevented residents from escaping faster. Even the building's front door was blocked by metal bars, which were ripped off as tenants screamed for help.
Investigators found that the house — where more than a dozen Ethiopian immigrants lived — had multiple code violations, including bars on doors, not enough exits, no working smoke detectors, no sprinkler system and inadequate lighting.
In the days after the fire, DCRA said the house was not licensed for any type of residential use. Two certificates of occupancy permits had been issued for the address, one in 1995 for a pharmacy there, and another in 1993 for office space, according to the March 22 police report.
