On March 24, less than 72 hours before a blaze killed four people at a San Pablo Avenue halfway house, a fire inspector ordered immediate service and certification of the building’s fire sprinkler system, among 11 severe fire hazards he documented.
But that sprinkler system was not fixed in time. It failed to operate because of damaged components, allowing the early morning inferno to grow unchecked and eventually destroy the entire four-story building, firefighters determined in their post-fire report obtained exclusively by this news organization. Nearly four months after the deadly March 27 fire, the 16-page report on the blaze presents the clearest picture yet of what happened at the building that provided transitional housing for some of the city’s most vulnerable residents.