After failing to do required inspections, fire marshal will be 'more vigilant' on Block Island

NEW SHOREHAM – State Fire Marshal Timothy McLaughlin says his office plans to be "a lot more vigilant" in the wake of the Harborside Inn fire on Block Island.

He acknowledged that officials repeatedly failed to conduct required inspections of the Harborside’s bar and restaurant, and said that two teams of inspectors who traveled to the island earlier this year overlooked it because of a misunderstanding.

"One team thought they did it, and the other team thought they did it, and it was just one of those deals," McLaughlin said.

But overall, he said, the state's fire code worked as it was supposed to and prevented a much worse catastrophe.

"Not one person got hurt and not one person died in a hotel that was full of patrons," he said. "So the system worked. The fire alarm system worked – it activated, got everybody out."

State knew about technician's history of fraud when issuing license

McLaughlin met individually with local media outlets on Tuesday to address lingering questions from the Harborside fire. He was joined by James Given, a deputy in the state fire marshal's office, and Matt Santacroce of the Department of Business Regulation.

Among those questions: Why did Rhode Island license a convicted felon who'd been prosecuted for lying about fire safety inspections?

During its investigation into the fire, the state fire marshal's office discovered that the fire suppression system in the Harborside's kitchen hadn't activated. Peter Freund of Emergency Services of New England LLC told investigators that he had inspected the system and knew it didn't work, but had tagged it as compliant anyway.

Freund previously pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in Connecticut in 2000, admitting that he certified fire extinguishers without testing them.

More: See how firefighters fought the Harborside Inn fire

Santacroce said on Tuesday that the Department of Business Regulation knew about Freund's conviction when he applied for a license to service extinguishing equipment in 2021.

Asked how the decision to grant that license had been made, Santacroce said, "I don’t think we’ve got a clear read on that at this point in time."

Rhode Island's fair-chance law means that people with criminal convictions cannot be barred from obtaining an occupational license. But exceptions can be made when "the underlying crime or crimes substantially relate to the occupation to which the license applies."

Unclear if disbarred technician had also been active on mainland

The state revoked Freund's license last week, and McLaughlin said that the attorney general's office is looking into whether he can be charged with criminal negligence.

He said that there had been "rumors" that the attorney general was investigating the state fire marshal's office, but "that's not true."

"The attorney general’s office reached out to us because they saw it in the news," he said, later adding, "We have a very good working relationship."

Meanwhile, it's unclear how many other fire suppression systems were falsely tagged as compliant.

More: State suspends license of fire inspector connected to Harborside Inn – what we know.

McLaughlin said that the state fire marshal's office plans to send letters to all bars and restaurants on Block Island, encouraging them to get in touch if Freund did any work for them.

"We will send someone out there to make sure that they’re in compliance," he said. "We’re trying to be very proactive with this."

Already, inspectors have made multiple trips out to the island to check the fire suppression systems in other commercial establishments, and have shut down several. But officials don't know whether Freund, who lives in Connecticut, was also active on the mainland.

It's up to a building owner or business owner to hire a private technician to test their fire suppression system, Given said. When the state fire marshal's office inspects the building, they'll check to see if the system has been tagged as compliant. But they don't necessarily keep a record of which technician signed off.

"We can’t go into the database and say, 'Alright, how many times does this guy’s name show up?'" Given said.

Island restaurants cope with continuing fallout

Already, officials have shut down the kitchens of several popular island establishments that hired Freund.

Block Island Fire Chief Chris Hobe said he asked the state fire marshal's office to come to the island on Monday after hearing that the kitchen hood suppression system at The National Hotel was the same as that in the Harborside.

Fire officials confirmed that it posed an imminent danger and the gas lines under the hood system were shut down, Hobe said.

Persephone's Kitchen & Cafe’s flat top cooking system on Water Street was also shut down after it was determined that it lacked a hood suppression system entirely, Hobe said.

“We believe [Freund’s] left a mess behind and we’re just going through buildings and checking everything,” Hobe said, adding that the review is being done in conjunction with the fire marshal’s office. He said that Freund had also inspected some fire extinguishers on the island.

Julie Natalizia, the National's general manager, confirmed that Freund had been the one to inspect the fire suppression system in the hotel's kitchen.

The hotel will be offering a limited menu throughout Columbus Day weekend until it closes for the season Monday. No french fries will be on the menu.

“We’re having fun. We’re making the best of it,” Natalizia said.

The kitchens at Club Soda and the Mohegan Café were also shut down for noncompliance, but the Mohegan Café was able to fix the problems that Freund had overlooked and reopen in time for Labor Day.

Town Manager Maryanne Crawford said the fire marshal advised town officials to urge establishments to have any systems tagged by Freund reinspected by a third-party vendor. The town is now spreading the word, she said.

'We're going to be a lot more vigilant on the island'

Bars and restaurants that hold liquor licenses are supposed undergo annual fire safety inspections.

But the Harbor Grille, the restaurant inside the Harborside Inn, hadn't been inspected once since the state fire marshal's office took over inspections on Block Island in 2019.

"Once COVID hit, everything was kind of closed," McLaughlin said. In 2021, he said, his office "put a plan together" and began inspecting buildings that were deemed a priority – the school, places of assembly, establishments with liquor licenses, hotels.

"We’ve done over three dozen inspections in a year and a half," he said.

Still, the Harborside was overlooked.

The fire marshal's report concluded that built-up grease on the fire exhaust hood probably helped accelerate the fire. If the Harborside's kitchen had been inspected, Given said, a fire marshal would have flagged that the hood hadn't been cleaned since May 2022.

However, he and McLaughlin both noted, an inspector wouldn't have tested the fire suppression system and wouldn't have detected that problem.

Technically, there was no requirement to inspect anything besides the restaurant – hotels don't have to be inspected on any set schedule. McLaughlin said it wasn't accurate to describe that as a loophole, and noted that the National, Spring House, 1661 Inn, and Manisses have all been inspected at some point since April 2022.

"We’re hitting the hotels just as much as we hit anywhere else," he said.

Asked if the state fire marshal's office plans to do anything differently in the wake of the fire, McLaughlin said, "We’re going to be a lot more vigilant over on the island. It’s a hard place to inspect — I mean, it’s 13 miles off the coast, and it’s a lot of resources to get from here over there to do it — but we’re committed."

Fire marshal says the system worked

It's still unclear what sparked the fire in the Harborside's kitchen.

The state fire marshal's office has two theories: Either someone unintentionally left a burner on at the end of the night, or grease vapors from the cooking line entered a gap and traveled through the wall.

"If you’ve ever cooked a burger or a steak on a gas grill, you know that when you put it on there, it will flare up," Given said.

Recently recovered security footage from a camera with a view of the kitchen may resolve that question, McLaughlin said.

"As far as we’re concerned, this fire is accidental," McLaughlin said. He praised the "great work" of firefighters from Block Island and the mainland in putting it out.

"A fire of that magnitude on the island at that time of the year, a hotel full of people, and not one injury or one death – to me, that’s the headline," he said. "Not one person got a stubbed toe, and not one person died."

When he got the phone call, he said, "that’s the first thing that came into my mind – how many?" But remarkably, there were no fatalities. That's evidence that the requirements set out in the state's fire code worked, he said.

"They’re all living today because the fire alarm worked and the sprinkler system was activated," he said.

This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: Block Island Harborside Inn fire has fire marshal 'more vigilant'