WELLS - The Riverview group home, recently destroyed by a fire that killed four of its nine residents, was operated by the state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, and as such, its fire safety codes had to conform to a strict set of guidelines.
"There is no higher standard," said OMRDD Upstate Area Director Richard Jung, who oversees inspections and certifications for the agency's group homes.
Officials at group home facilities are federally required to ensure their building conforms to certain sections of the National Fire Protection Association's Life Safety Code, and must complete a site-specific evacuation plan that ensured the needs of each individual resident would be met. As part of any site-specific plan, the Life Safety Code requires officials to determine how quickly individuals who live within a particular group home would have the capability to evacuate the home if an actual fire were to take place.
Officials determined that Riverview's residents, some of whom were ambulatory and some of whom were wheelchair-bound, would be very slow in exiting the building in case of a fire.
State Bureau of Criminal Investigation Senior Investigator Karl Meybaum said at least two of the four dead were unable to move around without some sort of assistance, and the residents' mental and physical disabilities may have added to the difficulty in their evacuation.
The speed at which individuals can exit the home must be classified in one of three ways-"prompt," "slow" or "impractical," with a "prompt" classification meaning people living in the home are mostly ambulatory and have the means to quickly leave a burning building and an "impractical" tag meaning the individuals are severely disabled and therefore cannot quickly exit. The Riverview group home was labeled "impractical," and as such, was required to conform to one of the strictest set of fire regulations the Life Safety Code mandates.
A sprinkler system must be installed throughout the building with an "impractical" designation-something not required of all group homes. Stricter fire barriers that enclose portions of the building are mandated as well.
"Sprinklers are really only used in places where that third level is needed," said Jung. "We have people who can't get out in under 13 minutes and where the building safety features need to be designed to accommodate that type of person."
Fire drills must also be conducted once a month, and smoke alarms must be present throughout the building. Those are required of all group homes.
The last deadly fire in a state group home was in 1992 in Suffolk County at a home under the auspices of the county United Cerebral Palsy Association. One resident and one staff member died in that fire.
"They're very, very infrequent," said Jung of group home fires. "I can't say that they've never happened. We've had instances of fires, but generally, the evacuation procedures work and we don't have situations like this."
A fire destroyed a Catholic Charities group home in Binghamton Tuesday. No one was injured.
It is not known what went wrong at the facility before the blaze, or whether the sprinkler system malfunctioned. An investigation is still underway, and OMRDD spokeswoman Nicole Weinstein said her agency's ultimate goal is "to find out what happened and make sure it doesn't happen again."
Jung said the agency's guidelines would be reviewed and said some could potentially be changed.
"Whenever we have a fire situation, we get the report...and we look at it to see what happened," said Jung. "If we need to put additional safety fire plans in, we do that."
Wells Supervisor Brian Towers said this week it would be best if fire officers, when going into such a fire scene, knew exactly where every bedroom is in the building. Since fire officials did not have that sort of information, he said, it was difficult for them to know where people were in the building.
He said the state could theoretically require group homes to submit such information to firefighters, though such measures are far from certain.
Some area group home officials expressed sympathy for those involved with the tragedy.
"I've been here 12 years and I haven't had anything like that happen really as a facilities manager," said Liberty assistant director of facilities management Jim Burroughs. "That's one of your worst nightmares."
Lexington Executive Director Paul Nigra said it was "a mystery" to him how the Wells fire could have occurred without the sprinkler system being activated.
"All our houses have pressure activated sprinkler systems and automatic generators that kick on if power is lost," he said Wednesday. "It was just a tragedy. Those people [who died] were really accepted by the community as part of the community in Wells."
Fulton Friendship House Executive Director Tom Ryan, whose organization operates a group home for those with mental illnesses, said group home officials are generally well prepared.
"Realistically, if you look at the general population and then you look at group homes, I think you would see that the number of events such as this are rare as far as casualties as far as in a group home most of the time because of the training and because of the drills and and everything else," he said. "Most people are aware of what to do in a fire."
Ryan, whose group home does not need to conform to OMRDD guidelines because it is instead under the auspices of the state Office of Mental Health, said residents of his home are mostly ambulatory and as such, strict OMRDD-type regulations are unnecessary. He stressed, however, that as a whole, group homes are heavily regulated.
"You're probably safer in a group home than you are in an apartment building," he said.
General assignment reporter Richard Nilsen contributed additional reporting.