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Menlo Park Fire Protection District officials plan next week to remember “one of the nation’s worst residential structure fires” that took place 10 years ago in East Palo Alto with a renewed call to ensure fire safety in homes.
Nine people, including five children, were killed in an early morning fire in a home at 2582 Fordham St. in East Palo Alto on April 26, 1997, according to Menlo Park Fire District Chief Harold Schapelhouman.
Flammable liquid was found on top of and inside a car in the home’s garage, where the fire began, Schapelhouman said, leading investigators to determine the cause was arson.
No suspects have ever been arrested or even identified in connection with the blaze, thought to be the second-most fatal residential fire in U.S. history, according to Schapelhouman.
Schapelhouman announced Monday that 10 years later, the fire district has decided to release its full report on the 1997 fire on April 25, in order to bring the case back to the public’s attention.
“It’s 10 years ago, but it could happen again,” Schapelhouman said.
The fact that the single-family, single-story home had non-releasable window bars, interior keyed locks and no smoke detectors “essentially doomed the occupants,” Schapelhouman said.
In response to the tragedy, the Menlo Park Fire Protection District, which oversees East Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton and some unincorporated areas of the county, was able to develop a program to install smoke detectors in homes that could not afford them, and to replace non-releasing window bars in homes with bars that release, according to Schapelhouman.
In the past 10 years, more than 1,000 homes have been retrofitted and the fire district has checked and installed thousands of smoke detectors and door locks, “but more needs to be done,” Schapelhouman said.
Schapelhouman said that in addition to a renewed call for residents to install and check their smoke detectors, install releasable security bars in their windows, and double-key locks in their doors, he wants all the communities under his purview to have residential sprinkler ordinances.
Fire district officials are currently in talks to establish a sprinkler ordinance in Menlo Park, and to develop a sprinkler ordinance that includes all retrofitted structures in Atherton, he said.
Though there is already a sprinkler ordinance in East Palo Alto, Schapelhouman expressed concern that the recent departure of some city building officials may reduce the city’s vigilance against illegal construction.
An investigation into the 1997 East Palo Alto fire continues, Schapelhouman said.
After leads dried up following the initial investigation, the case has recently been reopened by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office’s cold case unit, working in conjunction with the East Palo Alto Police Department.
According to Sheriff’s Capt. Don O’Keefe, who heads the unit, “It is a case we are actively working and we have been working … for over a year.”
