At the time of the fire, the 28,000 population City of LaGrange had adopted the
1991 editions of the Standard Building Code and The Standard Fire Prevention Code
both published by the Southern Building Code Congress. The community also adopted
the 1988 edition of NFPA Standard 101, The Life Safety Code published by the
National Fire Protection Association.
LaGrange Fire Department reported that the Fire Prevention Bureau began performing
new construction plan reviews in about 1984. Previously, new construction plan
reviews were entirely done by the LaGrange building official. Representatives of the
Fire Prevention Bureau indicated that they have been attempting to increase their
involvement in the plan’s review process since that time. They also report attempting to
perform more frequent fire prevention inspections of properties throughout the community.
However, it was also indicated that the last time Milliken’s Live Oak/Milstar
Complex had been thoroughly visited was over 5 years before the fire and the last company
in-service visit may have been several years before the fire. The manufacturing
equipment initially involved in the fire may not have been observed by anyone in the
fire department prior to the fire.
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