The Bing administration does nothing to find the causes of September fire outbreak.

[Carey]

Last September, after fires destroyed dozens of homes in a handful of neighborhoods, the Bing administration promised to get to the bottom of what happened and provide city council -- and the public -- with a report. Eight months later, there has been no report, and apparently no serious investigation, according to the Free Press.

The failure to explore the reasons for such a catastrophe would be inconceiveable in any other major city. For Detroit, it's business as usual. The truth would probably hurt -- lack of fire personnel and equipment almost certainly played a major role -- but inability to follow through says a lot about the Bing administration's effectiveness and its sense of responsibility toward citizens. That evening's fires clearly signaled that something is seriously wrong in the DFD, and the public clearly has a need to know as much as possible about this vital city service.

The state's public service commission managed to investigate and issue a report on DTE wires and DTE's response. But at the city level, the main response is the puzzling decision to lay a new sidewalk on a block were the fire-damaged houses have been demolished.

Following up on an incident like this is the municipal government equivalent of hitting the cutoff man in baseball -- it's fundamental. Basic. How can we expect Bing and his aides to carry off an immensely complicated, revolutionary concept like shrinking the city if they can't let taxpayers know why fires surged out of control on one afternoon in September?

http://www.freep.com/article/2011051...xt|FRONTPAGE|p

[Fnemecek]

I suppose one could say that the Bing Administration treats fires like it treats everything else.

[bartock]

Guess I don't understand what your point is. The first part of the article seems to include a bunch of people that were apparent victims of the fires wanting some sort of compensation for it. It suggests that money used for sidewalks could have been...just handed out to people in that neighborhood instead? Whether they have a case is another matter, but I guarantee there are a number of lawyers already prepping civil lawsuits for these folks.

As to the gripes about "why" the first occurred:

"But the city's fire investigators have ruled the fires undetermined. Many of the burned houses were razed by the city days after the fires.

Deputy Mayor Saul Green said at the Oct. 6 hearing that a report based on talks among Detroit Edison, the mayor's office and the fire department as to how similar problems could be avoided in the future would be produced in 30 to 45 days.

On Friday, Green told the Free Press that he did not send a report to the council. He said council President Pro Tem Gary Brown attended several of the meetings, and Brown sent a written report to the council. Green said he understood that it would be Brown who would keep the council abreast of what was going on.

The Michigan Public Service Commission, which oversees the state's utilities, investigated Detroit Edison's role in the fires. An MPSC staff report released Dec. 1 said that the utility was not negligent. But one of the areas cited for improvement was response times to downed-wire reports.

Other cities have passed cost-recovery ordinances enabling them to bill Detroit Edison for the time that firefighters are forced to guard downed power lines while waiting for the utility to respond.
City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said in an e-mail Saturday that a cost-recovery ordinance is closer to being law.

"I intend to call for a hearing in September 2011 near the anniversary of the event to seek an update on all relevant issues," Watson wrote.

Brown said he wrote a letter in December to the MPSC asking that Detroit Edison be ordered to respond within an hour to a downed wire.

Dan Lijana, Mayor Dave Bing's spokesman, said that the city did not provide any direct aid to the victims of the fires, but that the city's Human Services Department coordinated the distribution of private donations that people made to the fire victims.

Green said a new fire commissioner will be on the job by the end of May, and that he expects the commissioner will ramp up many of the preventive initiatives.

"We have to do everything in our power to make sure it doesn't happen again," Green said."

I'm not sure what else could be said about it.

[Carey]

My point comes from the one part of the article that says the Bing administration failed to follow through on a report it promised on the fires and how such an outbreak could be avoided in the future. That's all. The fires were a very serious incident, and I think it's fair to say most cities would have addressed the follow-up in a series way. That didn't happen here.

[Fnemecek]

I'm not sure what else could be said about it.

Well, I'll say this: if you're not already employed by the Bing Administration, you are certainly qualified to join them.

[bailey]

Well, I'll say this: if you're not already employed by the Bing Administration, you are certainly qualified to join them.

Haven't really followed it as closely as you have...but I have the same question. I mean isn't it sort of obvious? Hurricane force winds+ crappy power lines + massive abandonment = lots of house fires on a windy day. Throw in a under supplied fire department and you've got a recipe for blocks of house fires.

Is there a need for a blue ribbon commission to write a report on the obvious?

[Danny]

Of course KING BING and his adminstration didn't prevent the September house fires that were widespread thoughout Detroit's Nortown District along Van Dyke Rd. and E. 7 Mile Rd. Area. They didn't know its a La Lina late summer contrary winds that break power lines causing most homes to burn like paper. The weatherman predicted on its crystal ball and we and the Bing the do nothing about it.

WORD FROM THE STREET PROPHET!

It's a good thing we didn't have the great fire of 2010.

I miss you so, NEDA.

[Gistok]

Let's see.... Santa Ana type winds [[we know what havoc they play in southern California).... houses built in the 1920s & 1930s that are only 6ft. apart [[with their garages entered from the alley)... the proliferation of Ghetto Palms [[Ailanthus Altissima) growing in areas no one takes care of.... and a few downed power lines [[due to very high winds)....

To paraphrase Bailey... tell us again why we need to investigate this??

[Fnemecek]

Lots of abandoned houses in close proximity to one another? We've had that for 40+ years without the firestorm that we saw last year or anything even close to it.

High winds? We've had that, too. Hurricane force winds have blown through neighborhoods with lot of abandoned houses without producing anything close to the firestorm from last year.

Ghetto palms? Downed power lines? We've had those, too. We've had them in neighborhoods with the abandoned houses and the high winds, all without producing anything close to the firestorm from last year.

Every variable that has been cited, and every combination of variables, has been present before - both in Detroit and in other largely depopulated industrial area [[e.g., Flint, Saginaw, Toledo, and so on) without producing anything close to the firestorm from last year.

What was different that time from all of those other times?