PRESENTATIONS: Ghost Ship Fire Investigation & Energy Storage Incidents and Code Changes
Please see note below for location and parking instructions
Part 1: The Ghost Ship warehouse fire occurred on December 2, 2016, in Oakland, California. This tragic incident killed 36 individuals, making it the deadliest building fire in the United States since the Station Night Club fire in 2003. The local Alameda County Arson Task Force was called out to assist the City of Oakland and the ATF in the investigation. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was involved as a function of their participation with the County Arson Task Force. This presentation describes the sequence of events that occurred the night of the fire, the investigation process, and covers lessons learned.
Part 2: Our speaker will provide an overview of a number of recent energy storage incidents, from small personal-sized battery packs to mobility devices to industrial scale. Code and Standards updates to the 2024 IFC/IBC, proposals for the 2027 IFC, as well as 2026 NFPA 855 and related Standards will be discussed.
Speaker: Nicholas Bartlett, P.E. (NREL)
Nicholas Bartlett, P.E. is a licensed Fire Protection Engineer/ Professional Engineer with 18 years experience in general fire protection code consulting, code enforcement, fire protection program development, energy storage systems, hydrogen technologies, fire protection design, hazardous materials, fire modeling and smoke control, building construction, and wildland fire. Nick is currently the Fire Marshal/AHJ at the United States Department of Energy National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado.
Nick’s previous responsibilities include working as a Fire Protection Engineer with Underwriters Laboratories (UL) testing/Listing fire protection products; Fire Protection Engineer with Jensen Hughes performing fire modeling, smoke control design/commissioning, and code consulting; and Senior Fire Protection Engineer for the United States Department of Energy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory enforcing all aspects of IFC and NFPA codes and standards with significant emphasis on hazardous materials and new construction.
Current involvement in codes and standards development includes serving as a technical member of NFPA 855, Standard for the Installation of Stationary Energy Storage Systems, NFPA 1140, Standard for Wildland Fire Protection, UL 1487, Battery Containment Enclosures, and the ICC Ad-Hoc Committee on Batteries. Past involvement has included membership on NFPA 51B, Standard for Fire Prevention During Welding, Cutting, and other Hot Work, NFPA 520, Standard on Subterranean Spaces, and UL 1489, Fire Tests of Penetration Firestops.
Location: Durango Fire Station 1 at 142 Sheppard Drive. A special note on parking: We have very limited parking for visitors at Station 1; however, our administration is located across the street at 103 Sheppard Drive, and visitors may also park there.
Business Meeting to follow the presentation. Please register for the business meeting separately from our Events page.
