Columbia fire inspections completed, county not involved

Published 10:23 am Tuesday, January 9, 2018

By Ray McClees

For the most part only minor infractions were found when all 107 buildings in Columbia that are open to the public underwent fire inspections recently, town manager Rhett White told the board of aldermen January 2.
The inspections covered shops, stores, restaurants, churches, offices, etc. One establishment, currently closed, will be required to address storage of certain materials before re-opening, White said.
The inspections grew out of an anonymous telephoned complaint to the state fire marshal’s office in Raleigh that Columbia is not maintaining adequate state-mandated access roads for fire apparatus.
The fire inspections by the Town of Columbia were all of structures inside the corporate limits. They did not include rural areas of Tyrrell County as the headline of a December 20 report in The Scuppernong Reminder stated. Tyrrell County has its own inspections department.
Most counties do not inspect for fire safety, White informed the aldermen initially, and his statement was confirmed January 3 by Joie Spencer, Tyrrell County Fire Marshal and head of the county Inspections Department.
Bob Rosser, director of strategic affairs in the state Department of Insurance, stated that after the complaint was made “a visit was scheduled to the county and the city to determine what level of inspections were occurring. When that visit occurred it was determined that no fire inspections were occurring at the county or city level.”
The state consultant visited the town, and the inspections were subsequently carried out. 
“The visit was only for the town of Columbia, not the county,” Spencer clarified. “However, the Town of Columbia did do fire inspections on Tyrrell County-owned buildings within the town limits.”
The consultant “never visited the County Inspections department,” Spencer stated. “Only the town inspections department was visited because that is the department that had a complaint.”
White estimated the fire safety inspections could cost the town an estimated unbudgeted $6,000, but he gave no cost figure during his January report.

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