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One year later, Joe West Hall fire still under investigation; '90 Moulder Hall fire revisited
Tiffani Analla, Special to the Daily
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"It blows my mind that someone would stay in their room," said Moqim, who was one of 21 students injured in the Oct. 19, 1990, Moulder Hall fire.
"One minute could change your life," he said.
There have been no arrests and there are no leads as the investigation of the 2001 arson fire continues, according to Lt. Bruce Lowe of the University Police Department.
Although there were no injuries in the Joe West Hall blaze unlike the Moulder Hall fire in which three students were critically injured, Moqim said residents refuse to believe that they can be injured or die.
According to the U.S. Fire Administration, five students die and 50 others are injured in an average year when fires strike at residence halls, private and prep schools and high schools.
After the Joe West Hall fire, President Robert Caret said residents need to obey fire safety instruction if they are to remain safe.
"Like any society, we need to cooperate, i.e., the people in the society need to cooperate if any of the rules are going to work," Caret said. "And fooling around in a residence hall, particularly a high-rise residence hall, is a very dangerous habit to get into."
In the past five years, Joe West Hall has had 27 false alarms and the residence halls have had 13 fires, which range from the Joe West Hall fire to trashcan fires.
Susan Hansen, Director of University Housing Services, said in a written response that the following changes occurred as a result of the 2001 fire. She confirmed the changes last week:
*"After the Joe West Hall fire we had the fire alarm company come out and test all of the sound horns since some students complained that they could not hear the horns. Sound horns were replaced on several floors."
*"The fire panel continues to be upgraded for the optimal effect as new technology becomes available."
*"Because there have been differing feedback on the volume of the horns in Joe West, we are initiating a quarterly fire alarm system inspection through the service provider. "
*"After the Joe West Hall fire, Residential Life staff (members) were issued an emergency vest and a whistle since, during this incident (Joe West Hall fire), a few residents expressed that they were unclear as to whom to take instruction from regarding the location for assembly. The vests and whistles were added to the standard equipment for resident advisers."
There isn't much evidence left from the fire, which caused an estimated $100,000 in damages and was ignited by an accelerant, a type of fuel, Lowe said.
Police reports said the fire burned down portions of a wooden fence, melted two picnic tables, charred the concrete bridge that contained three metal pipes underneath it, one of which was a gas pipe, damaged electrical wiring and cracked Joe West Hall's basement window.
If the basement window had broken and the fire had entered Joe West Hall, the lives of those remaining inside would have been in danger, an investigator said.
Lowe stressed that students should not falsely pull fire alarms.
"For those people who think it's funny to set off a fire alarm, what they are doing may one day indirectly lead to serious injury, death to someone who didn't pay attention to a fire alarm because they and people like them kept setting off false alarms," he said.
Although Caret agreed that residents need to obey fire safety procedures, after the Joe West Hall fire he said he understood why residents were reluctant to heed evacuating calls.
"I lived in Joe West for seven months when I first arrived here and I understand why people don't evacuate because you would be evacuating sometimes two and three times a night," Caret said. "And that's what I mean about cooperation. You know? We can't have people pulling false alarms, because then you get into the crying-wolf syndrome and people don't believe it anymore."
A special grand jury has been meeting since October 2001 to try to determine fault in the fatal Seton Hall University fire in South Orange, N.J. Three freshmen died and 58 were injured. A string of 19 false alarms preceded the fire.
Moqim urges students to take fire drills seriously and to heed evacuation calls because he said he knows how close to death someone can come after being hospitalized for a couple of weeks and wearing a back brace for several months. He said his injuries from the fire continue to affect his life
"If you don't get out of there, it could affect your life forever," said Moqim who was one of nine SJSU students who reached an out-of-court settlement for nearly $3 million with the state of California.
A reward up to $1,000 is being offered in conjunction with Crime Stoppers for information leading to the apprehension of the arsonist in the 2001 blaze, Lowe said.
Oct. 19, 1990
In the 1990 Moulder Hall blaze, which caused more than $300,000 in damages and yielded no criminal convictions, a sofa that was moved in front of a resident's room as a practical joke later caught fire and sent scores of residents fleeing the building.
According to court documents, Thomas Byrd awoke on the morning of the fire to a sound he thought was his car alarm. He opened his door to identify the noise and immediately shut his door after he noticed smoke and flames outside his room. He awoke his roommate, Brian Young, and both tried to escape the fire by running to an exit door about 50 feet from their room. Young and Byrd dropped to their knees to escape smoke. They tried to open the exit door, however, the door was jammed. It wouldn't open. Court records show that both students, seriously burned, were rescued by firefighters.
Meanwhile, Abdul Hakim Moqim, according to court documents, woke to screams of "fire" by his roommate and ran to his door. He immediately shut the door when flames "burst" into his doorway. He panicked and began to have difficulty breathing when smoke entered his room. He asked his roommate to lower him down to the ground with some towels. After Moqim realized the towels wouldn't reach the ground, he panicked, let go of the towels and fell into prickly bushes.
Meanwhile, about 25 people hung out of their third floor windows, according to a fire report. Police reports said residents were sitting on their ledges calling for help. Officers tried to stop students from jumping from their windows. According to fire reports, ground and aerial ladders were used to rescue some students, while others escaped by using the staircase.
About 21 residents suffered injuries that ranged from severe burns and broken bones to smoke inhalation in the 5:55 a.m. arson fire.
According to court documents, before the fire erupted, Terry Jones, Matthew Merideth, Joel Flanders, Brian Foote and Allen Borecky returned to Moulder Hall after watching a movie in downtown San Jose. They decided to hang out in Foote's room to listen to music. They later drank alcohol and consumed nitrous oxide.
Foote decided to go to bed. Merideth, Borecky and Jones went to Flanders' room where they continued to drink and consume nitrous oxide.
Court records show that as a prank on Marshall Lise, another Moulder Hall resident, Jones, Merideth and Flanders moved a lounge-area couch in front of Lise's room so that he would trip over the couch when he opened the door.
Court records show the couch later caught fire.
Borecky, Jones, Foote and Flanders fled the blaze, while Merideth remained inside his room until police officials awoke him the next morning, court records show.
Settlement, changes
According to John Stein, who as a member of the Boccardo law firm of San Jose, represented seven SJSU students in an out-of-court settlement reached with the state of California for more than $2.9 million,
SJSU should have had better safety procedures in place and a defective couch contributed to the students' injuries, Stein said.
Merideth and Jones, who moved the couch, were ordered to contribute $300,000 and $765,000 to the out-of-court settlement, respectively.
"They should have had meetings with the resident advisers within a day or two of commencing and they should have had safety instructions telling the students if a fire happens, here's what you do and here's where the exits are," Stein said. "You know you don't jump out of windows because two or three kids jumped out of the windows," Stein said.
An e-mail response from Fred Najjar, who was director of University Housing Services during the Moulder Hall fire, stated residents were instructed in fire safety.
"Resident directors and resident advisers were trained and held floor meetings to review all safety procedures with their residents in the first few days of the Fall semester in which the fire occurred," Najjar wrote.
Lowe, who was the main investigator of the Moulder Hall fire until December 1991, said he wasn't sure if the residents received fire safety training.
"It's very possible that the residence halls did do the training that they currently do, that they did hold their evacuations as they do now. I don't know," he said
Robert Burchfiel of Hoge, Fenton, Jones and Appel Inc., who represented the state of California in the case, said the students had fire drills and were instructed in fire safety.
Instructions were posted on the back of the residence hall doors that explained what to do when a fire occurred, Burchfiel added.
Stein said students weren't instructed.
"Several of the students, you know, had never been trained, and they had just opened the door," he said. "In fact, one of the students, as I recall, had to use his T-shirt or something to open the door handle because the door handle was so hot and of course he ran into the hall and got burned. Whereas if he would have stayed in his room he probably would have been totally safe."
According to Lowe, several people jumped out of their windows to flee the fire.
If the residents had remained inside their rooms they would not have been injured, Lowe said.
Moqim, who jumped out of his window, fractured his back and developed chronic asthma because of smoke inhalation that he suffered during the fire, according to court documents.
After the fire, court records show he had nightmares that caused him to awake and think his home was on fire.
Another factor that contributed to the students' injuries, Stein said, was the purchase by SJSU of a defective couch by SJSU that was highly toxic and flammable and generated heat down the hall.
"We're saying that they (SJSU) should have never selected this type of couch with all of this foam and all that kind of stuff because it's highly toxic," Stein said. "It creates a huge heat pattern. I mean the degrees of heat in the halls were huge."
Burchfiel agreed.
"There was a recommendation it was not the best furniture in the world as far as being fire retardant," Burchfiel said.
Stein said SJSU procurement officials should be aware of fire ratings.
"People who buy furniture for public places are supposed to know all of this," Steinsaid. That's what their job is. They're supposed to know what's safe for a public place."
Hansen, the current director for University Housing Services, wrote that furniture in the residence halls was replaced as a result of the Moulder Hall fire.
"Since October 1990, University Housing Services elected to have TB133 grade fabric on all common-area furniture," she wrote. "This is the most stringent fire-resistant fabric available."
One problem from the Moulder Hall fire, Lowe said, was that residents were not able to open the interior exit doors because the doorknobs were hot.
The interior exit doors, which once were opened by turning a knob during the time of the Moulder Hall fire, are now opened by panic bars, which allows people to push on the bar and leave, instead of having to turn a knob, Lowe said.
Young and Byrd, according to court documents, tried several times to open the exit door to leave Moulder Hall, but could not.
Court records said Young was burned over 55 percent of his body, which included his face, neck, arms, hands, chest, back, shoulders and lower extremities. Young's left thumb had to be partially amputated because burns to his hands were so severe. His ear lobes burned away and the joints of his left index and middle finger were fused and he could not bend his fingers. He experienced "constant pain throughout his body."
Further court records stated that he experienced psychological trauma in adjusting to his condition. He feared seeing anyone because of his appearance. When he traveled in a car he refused to leave the vehicle. He requested that his parents have the car windows tinted to prevent anyone from seeing him in the car. He questioned whether he would have the courage to return to school and was concerned about making friends because of his appearance.
He also had difficulty writing, dressing, eating and bathing because of his injuries, records show.
Young received $1.4 million from a nearly $3 million out-of-court settlement with the state of California.
Byrd suffered burns over 35 percent of his body. Court records stated that Byrd had serious burns to both of his hands, arms and shoulders, his upper back and left leg.
Byrd received $1.1 million from the out-of-court settlement.
Stein said those who didn't come in direct contact with the fire suffered injuries as well.
"If you have to exit the building, make sure you're covered with clothing and all that kind of stuff, because the unusual configuration of those dorms is such that they have cinder block walls," Stein said.
"And when you go out into the hallway, if there's a fire in the hall it just acts like a microwave oven. It's radiating heat down that hall," he said. "And in this particular case, I think two or three of my clients, as I recall, were not burned. They were radiated."
Another issue, Stein said, was that the resident adviser should have better supervised the behavior of the residents prior to the fire.
"These kids had been drinking for a considerable period of time. We were critical of the resident adviser. He had done nothing to stop despite the fact that much of the students said they heard noise and they complained about it and nobody did anything," Stein said.
Moulder Hall didn't have nighttime security, Stein said.
"As I recall they didn't have any patrols. They had no nighttime security or anything, and our contention was that if you had a security guard patrolling the dorm, you know, the area was not that great, that if you just had a security guard patrolling, they would have discovered this thing before everyone got hurt," he said.
Because SJSU is a public entity and because the state of California was the builder of Moulder Hall, SJSU is essentially immune to construction regulations, Stein said.
"The state doesn't have to follow uniform building codes," he said. "The state can do anything it wants."
According to Stein, it is the Legislature's and SJSU's responsibility to implement proper safety procedures and to construct residence halls that are built safely.
"If the state of California refuses to change their procedures then you're going to continue to have fires, you're going to continue to have accidents," he said. "Unless San Jose State reacts to a tragedy like this (the Moulder Hall fire) and changes their procedures and makes it a safer place to live, you're going to have a repeat sure enough in a matter of years."
SJSU President Caret, who was not president during the Moulder Hall fire, said he isn't sure what SJSU has done to improve the housing situation since the fire.
"I wasn't here and I never really asked that particular question. I have to the satisfaction of my staff asked the question, 'Have we done everything we can, given the age of our facilities?'" Caret said.
"At this point you could retrofit the facilities and put sprinklers in and if we were to keep the facilities for another 10 years we'd probably do that," Caret said. "But we're scheduling to tear them down now.
"So now is not the time to put a lot of money into the facilities. I have had them look at the high-risk areas to make sure we've had the sprinkler systems there and I'm told we do.
"And two, I said if there's any short term things they think are feasible let's look at that also and they're evaluating that also."
Najjar wrote in an e-mail response that fire safety procedures were assessed after the Moulder Hall fire.
"As a matter of practice, all safety procedures were carefully reviewed," he wrote.
Several attempts to obtain building code violations before and after the Moulder Hall fire were unsuccessful.
"Somebody was very critical of San Jose State," Stein said. "I remember that and I think it was the CDF (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) and they criticized the fact that improper safety procedures had been implemented."
Stein said the state of California blamed Jones, Flanders and Merideth for causing the fire.
"Our basic contention was that students commit pranks, and that's what they do. That's what students are supposed to do," he said. "And it's up to the school to supervise them at least in a way that the pranks don't result in serious injury."
According to Hansen, the current director of University Housing Services, the fire was a result of students moving furniture.
"The 'problems' of the Moulder Hall fire had to do with students placing a common area lounge couch in front of a resident's door and then lighting it on fire," she wrote.
Besides the fabric of the couches in the residence halls being replaced as one remedy for the Moulder Hall fire, other changes were implemented, she wrote.
"Since October 1990, University Housing Services was required, as were all residence halls within the CSU, to refrain from placing
As a result of the Moulder Hall fire, fire safety instruction has changed, Hansen wrote.
"Since October 1990, University Housing Services reviewed language in the Community Living Handbook regarding fire safety and has continued to incorporate student and staff feedback to make it as clear as possible," she wrote.
SJSU was commended for how it handled the fire, Najjar wrote in an e-mail.
"SJSU Housing Services were congratulated by the CSU system and the chancellor for handling this very difficult situation (Moulder Hall fire) as well as possible," Najjar wrote. "I am very proud of how the residential students, resident advisers, resident directors, facilities staff, administrative staff, housing managers, UPD, counseling services, etc. conducted themselves. We had a very strong team of committed professionals on campus that helped us get through the crisis."
Attempts to locate students involved in the fire were unsuccessful.
Fire cause in dispute
The cause of the Moulder Hall fire is disputed.
UPD Lt. Lowe said the fire was not intentionally ignited. A cigarette left on the couch that later smoldered, caused the fire, he said.
"It is my understanding that we (UPD) requested that the State Fire Marshal Office test that other couch," Lowe said. "And it was our understanding that they (the State Fire Marshal's Office technicians) were going to test the other couch. However, it was my understanding that the State Fire Marshal's Office never tested the other couch."
Court records show that G.W. Smith of the California State Fire Marshal Office, was the supervising investigator of the fire and that he said the fire was intentionally ignited by an application of an open flame from an unknown heat source.
Lowe said that an attorney involved in the civil case said that the couch was not intentionally ignited.
"He had the laboratory-controlled documents stating that what we hypothesized happened did happen, but when the civil attorney offered the district attorney the results of his controlled tests, the district attorney said I don't need those. I have everything I need from the office of the state fire marshal," Lowe said. "And so when it went before the judge, the judge looked at the report from the office of the state fire marshal saying that the couch could not catch fire. The judge said our expert witness (testimony about the couch) couldn't happen the way we said it happened."
Two attorneys involved in the civil case agreed that the fire was deliberately set.
Stein, who represented SJSU students in a nearly $3 million out-of-court settlement with the state of California, said that a smoldering cigarette couldn't have started the fire because the couch had a leather plastic cover on it.
"So there was no question that the fire had been deliberately set, at least in our minds," Stein said.
Burchfiel, who represented the state of California in the civil case, agreed.
"I believe one or more of them intentionally set the fire," he said. "It wasn't an accident."
David S. Key, who represented Merideth, declined to comment.
Attempts to reach Jones' attorney, David S. Key, were unsuccessful.
Flanders did not have an attorney.
Although Burchfiel said the fire was intentionally ignited, the students did not want to harm anyone.
"They intended it as a joke without injury and it got well out of hand," he said.
Lowe agreed.
"There was a little mean-spirited behavior going on. Each one seemed to be egging on the other one on to take it a step further and as a result they committed something that completely got out of hand," Lowe said. "I don't think they intended the consequences as they happened to be the result of their prank and they have to live with the results of that for the rest of their lives."
Court records show that Merideth, Flanders and Jones were arrested with charges of arson in May 1992.
According to UPD Lt. Lowe, the case was thrown out of court. Flanders, Jones and Merideth were not convicted in a criminal court because of insufficient evidence, he said.
"We (UPD) were not able to present strong enough evidence in the criminal court to convict them. However, we were able to present enough evidence in a civil trial and they were held liable," Lowe said.
Lowe said the UPD couldn't get Flanders, Jones and Merideth to confess that they started the fire. They did admit to moving the couch, he said. Attempts to reach the trio were unsuccessful.
The Department of Justice also was unable to obtain a confession from the trio, Lowe noted.
"If our interviews had gone better from our standpoint, maybe we could have gotten somebody to confess. But I don't know that anyone could have made them confess."
"If you had seen what had happened that day and knew that you were responsible, you and your two friends, I suspect that one person might have been able to break because they're only accountable to themselves. But three people when they're all accountable to each other equates a pressure that is somewhat equivalent to the pressure we're putting on them to try to get them to confess, so it becomes very difficult.
"If you're dealing with individuals that don't have any kind of loyalty, we're trained to break them down. We were not able to (break them down). Bottom line is we never got them to confess."
State-of-the-art safety
The first of three phases for the construction and demolition of the
The second phase will begin in 2005 and 2006 when Hoover, Royce and Washburn residence halls are demolished.
The three phases should be completed by 2012, she said.
Hansen said that triple occupancy rooms should not exceed more than 45 percent of the total rooms.
The six brick residence halls are designed for 212 residents but contain more students, according to Hansen in an e-mail response.
For example, Hoover Hall contains 226 students and the other five brick residence halls contain more than 212 residents in varying numbers, according toHansen.
"I do not feel that 212 people in the red brick buildings is a safety concern," she stated. "If students become familiar with safety procedures, attend the fire safety meetings and stay calm during emergencies, things tend to go very well."
Hansen declined to characterize the safety of increased occupancy in the residence halls.
President Robert Caret in a press conference said that he viewed the triple occupancy rooms more as a comfort concern than as a safety issue.
State Fire Marshal Office officials declined to characterize on the safety of increased occupancy in the residence halls.
The new residence halls will have state-of-the-art safety features and will be built according to current building codes implemented by the State Fire Marshal's Office, Hansen said.
Hansen said one safety feature included in the new residence halls is sprinklers.
Currently, the six brick residence halls aren't equipped with sprinklers because they were not required by building codes in the 1950s when they were constructed. There are no future plans to equip them with sprinklers, according to Hansen.
Currently, Joe West Hall, which was built in 1960, has sprinklers in high-risk areas.
According to campus architect Art Heinrich, residence halls are more likely required today to have sprinklers than in the 1950s and 1960s because of building code requirements.
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anonymous852
anonymous852
posted 4/29/02 @ 1:03 PM PST
I lived in Moulder in the early 90's and the entire building itself was unsafe. I remember the lights flickering if someone was using a blow dryer down the hall, etc. (Continued…)
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