A fire that killed a Georgetown University student last year and triggered a series of city inspections of off-campus housing was not caused by faulty furnace wiring, as first reported by authorities, but was started by cigarettes or candles, officials revealed yesterday.
The fast-moving blaze swept through a rowhouse in the 3300 block of Prospect Street NW on Oct. 17, killing Daniel Rigby, a 21-year-old senior. Rigby was living in a basement room that contained the furnace. Several other students escaped the house unharmed.
Authorities investigate the October fire that killed a Georgetown University senior in his basement room in the 3000 block of Prospect Street.
(Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)
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Hours after the mid-morning fire, officials blamed faulty wiring leading to the furnace -- a conclusion that led to calls for a crackdown on conditions in off-campus housing. Fire inspectors found violations in the rowhouse where Rigby died. But after visiting the site of the fire about a week later, another set of fire investigators determined that the blaze had not started near the furnace.
The investigators found evidence that the fire originated in an area where Rigby had been using candles and near an ashtray, officials said.
The final report on the fire was issued in December but not made public. Officials disclosed the investigation's findings after a reporter asked about the inquiry this week.
Alan Etter, a spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department, said it was common for a second team of investigators to revisit fatal fires to ensure reports were accurate.
"It is routine to go back in fires where a death has occurred and reconstruct it so they know precisely what happened," Etter said.
The follow-up team of investigators determined that the furnace and its wiring were in proper working order. A witness also told authorities that Rigby had been smoking and using candles the night before the fire, officials said.
The two fire officials who conducted the initial examination have been reassigned to other units, authorities said.
Fire inspectors issued several citations to the owner of Rigby's house for code violations. Those violations included having bars welded to the window frames and blocked exit doors.
The home's owner, Carolyn Channave of Florida, did not return phone messages. The home is now unoccupied, officials said.
Rigby's parents, who live in New Jersey, did not return a phone message this week seeking comment.
In the days after the fire, students and neighborhood organizations complained about shoddy off-campus housing conditions. They said that some properties had problems such as wires that hung from ceilings, locked exit doors, barred windows and holes in floors.
City building and fire inspectors soon swarmed the area, checking scores of homes and issuing dozens of citations. More than 50 students were evicted, and authorities closed some or all of the units in nine rental properties.
Gwen Davis, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulator Affairs, said the city is continuing to follow up on the properties that were cited.
At the time of the fire, inspectors walked up and down streets, knocking on doors to get permission to enter the homes. That proved ineffective, Davis said. Today, inspectors enter homes only after they get a tip or complaint about housing conditions, she said.
Georgetown University officials said they learned of the fire's cause only yesterday. A university spokeswoman said the findings did not diminish the school's concerns about off-campus housing.
"It certainly doesn't change the fact that this is a tragic incident and raises serious questions about the safety of some of the off-campus housing that students are living in," spokeswoman Laura Cavender said.
