Santa Ana : Burned-Out Center Complied With Codes

While Santa Ana fire investigators continued rummaging through the burned-out shell of the Pioneer Town shopping center, fire officials Friday said the complex complied with city building codes.

The blaze Thursday destroyed 17 stores in the 37,000-square-foot complex at 1002 E. 17th St. Preliminary reports indicate the fire started at the west end of the Parts Plus auto supply store and might have been due to an electrical malfunction, Santa Ana Fire Chief William Reimer said.

City records showed that the 27-year-old building had two fire walls with a resistance level of two hours, said Joseph Mazzeo, manager of permit and inspection services for Santa Ana. A third wall had a one-hour resistance.

The building has not undergone any major renovations since it was built in 1958 that would have required it to meet later building code standards, Mazzeo said. He added that annual reports by city inspectors showed no violations.

“There were no attics in that building aside from the drop ceiling. But the fire walls went all the way up from the foundation to the ceiling,” Mazzeo said. And that’s “perfectly in line with city building codes” considering the age of the structure, he said.

Chief Reimer, however, said the drop ceiling acted in the same fashion as a normal attic. “It’s a concealed open-space area not exposed to the outside. That definitely aided the spread of the blaze.” The fire spread quickly from one end of the complex to the other, leaving a mass of charred rubble.

Reimer also said Friday that the Fire Department is continuing its investigation into allegations by some store owners that firefighters did not act quickly enough and complaints that they didn’t let people retrieve valuables from the buildings.