Report Details Dispatching Snafu in Fire : Communication: Document reveals staff was given the correct address four times before trucks were sent to the wrong house miles away. The blaze killed a mother and three of her children.

By PAUL FELDMAN

Feb. 8, 1995 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

A report on the communication snafu that kept city firefighters from promptly reaching a deadly house fire reveals that fire dispatchers were given the correct address in Southwest Los Angeles four times before they dispatched the first firetrucks to the wrong address miles away in Koreatown.

Moreover, the firetrucks were not dispatched to that wrong address for an unusually long time--more than four minutes--after fire dispatchers were first alerted to the blaze that killed Beverly Middleton, 36, and three of her children, ages 11 months, 2 and 3.

The Fire Department’s mishandling of the response, which department officials have admitted since the day of the Jan. 30 fire, has attracted considerable attention because it extended the response time to 14 minutes, more than twice the department’s average of six minutes.

The disturbing 21-page report, presented to the City Council in closed session Tuesday morning, included an Abbott-and-Costello-like transcript in which Vine Street, 9th Street and 9th Avenue were confused in a conversation over headsets between a 911 operator and the Fire Department dispatcher to whom the operator was relaying the address. Each apparently misunderstood the other’s pronunciation of the address.

“What’s the name of the street?” asked the fire dispatcher.

“9th Avenue,” replied the 911 operator.

“Vine?” asked the fire dispatcher.

“Uh, huh,” said the 911 operator.

Seconds later, the fire dispatcher sought to reconfirm the address: “OK, you said that was 3102 Vine?”

“No, 9 . . . as in the number 9,” replied the 911 operator.

The fire occurred on 9th Avenue, as the 911 operator initially stated. However, fire dispatchers sent trucks to 9th Street, in an entirely different neighborhood.

At a public meeting of the city Fire Commission an hour before the private council session, Deputy Fire Chief Don Anthony said steps are being taken to prevent similar mistakes in the future.

For one thing, he said, whenever 911 operators verbally transfer emergency calls over their headsets to fire dispatchers located elsewhere in the city’s emergency communications center, they will now include a cross street as well as the address. In addition, verbal messages are now to be repeated word for word to ensure they are understood.

Anthony, who said the miscommunication was largely attributable to human error, later acknowledged that the initial dispatch time of more than four minutes was also far longer than normal.

“We were running slow,” he told a Times reporter. “We were behind on it.”

Anthony said one factor may have been that dispatchers were handling several different calls across the city at the same time.

The first call to 911 on the 9th Avenue fire came in at 1:53 a.m., but the first firetrucks were not even dispatched to the wrong address until 1:58 a.m., the report showed.

Anthony said the initial problem occurred largely because the police 911 operator did not follow established procedures and immediately transfer the call to fire dispatchers. If she had transferred the call, the fire dispatcher could have spoken personally to the emergency caller, Anthony said, and the caller’s address would have flashed on a computer screen in the fire dispatch office.

Instead, the address calmly relayed by the 911 operator over a headset was misunderstood by the fire dispatcher.

After hanging up from the 911 operator, the fire dispatcher tried to telephone the emergency caller but received an answering machine instead.

At 1:57 a.m.--more than three minutes after the first call but before any firetrucks were sent out--fire dispatchers received two additional 911 calls about the 9th Avenue blaze in which, according to Anthony, the correct address of the fire flashed on their computer screens. In addition, a police operator called fire dispatchers at 1:57 a.m. and reported that police were already at the scene of a fire--in which victims were trapped--on 9th Avenue.

Despite all these warnings, firetrucks were sent to the wrong address. Not until 2:07 a.m. were firefighters dispatched to the correct address. They arrived at almost 2:10 a.m. and extinguished the fire at 2:23 a.m.

Fire officials did not release the names of the operators involved in the communications snafu and Anthony said the issue of discipline has yet to be addressed. He will issue a final report to the council and the Fire Commission in the coming weeks.

The issue of the city’s potential legal and financial responsibility was apparently discussed in the closed-door council session with city fire officials and city attorneys. Although Anthony made a public report before the Fire Commission early Tuesday and had expected to do the same to the council, the public was ordered to leave the council chambers when Anthony was called to speak.

Among those forced to depart were several relatives of the fire victims, including Middleton’s mother, Shirley Boucher. The family members were accompanied by a lawyer, Stephen R. Landau, who said he was investigating the city’s liability in the incident.

At the earlier commission meeting in Hollywood, Fire Commissioner Kenneth Lombard commented that he was “particularly concerned there was a certain level of casualness” in the dialogue between the dispatchers as reflected in the transcript. He also suggested that dispatchers receive training on similarly named streets in Los Angeles to avoid future mistakes.

Anthony replied that he too was concerned about the casual manner in which the dispatchers conversed.

According to the report, the two Fire Department dispatchers who were involved in the incident were unaware that 9th Street was miles from 9th Avenue.

Boucher, who expressed appreciation of the Fire Department’s frankness but frustration with the council’s unexpected private session, has said she could not understood how she was able to arrive at the scene of the fire well before city firefighters.

Boucher, who received a call from neighbors after the first 911 call was placed, lives 14 blocks away--twice as far as the nearest fire station.

Four of Boucher’s grandchildren survived the early morning blaze, which fire officials say was apparently accidental, because 13-year-old Syreeta Middleton was able to open the security bars of a bedroom window and pull three of her younger sisters to safety.

A funeral service for Beverly Middleton and her children Patricia Marlene, 3, Donovan, 2, and William, 11 months, is scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. at Mt. Calvary Church of God in Christ, 3770 Santa Rosalia Drive. It will be followed by burial at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

Boucher said the fire victims will be placed in one coffin because Middleton, whose body was found in a hallway together with two of her toddlers, “didn’t want to leave them.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Mix-Up

The Los Angeles Fire Department on Monday released transcripts of the initial miscommunication between city emergency operators that led fire dispatchers to send trucks to the wrong address for a Southwest Los Angeles blaze in which a mother and three toddlers died Jan. 30.

The first portion of the transcript is the first emergency call reporting the fire to a police 911 operator.

The second portion is the subsequent communication--by headset--between the 911 operator and a Fire Department dispatcher.

TIME -- 1:53:15 A.M.

* 911: Los Angeles Police, Operator 761.

* Caller: Uh, could you have the Fire Department come to 3102 9th Avenue, there’s a fire, the lady’s neighbor across the street, could you please hurry up?

* 911: Is it a house or apartment?

* Caller: Uh huh.

* 911: The house is on fire?

* Caller: Uh huh.

* 911: Is there anybody trapped inside?

* Caller: And she have 8 kids, I’m going to go get them out of the house.

* 911: So there’s people still inside.

* Caller: Umm, I don’t know, I ran in the house, the neighbor told me to call you.

* 911: OK, I’ll let them know.

* Caller: OK, thank you.

TIME -- 1:53:48 a.m.

* Fire: 91, Fire Department, can I help you?