Independent journalist Steve Neavling launches an ambitious year-long project by listing every structure fire in Detroit last month -- all 225 -- and posting three charts and an interactive map with data about them.
His "Detroit on Fire" series at Motor City Muckraker is intended to "provide an unflinching look at a crisis that has been largely ignored by the media and neglected by politicians," writes Neavling, a former Free Press reporter who founded his news site in May 2012.
His first analysis, posted Thursday, says:
In January, fires broke out in 205 houses, 10 commercial buildings, seven apartments, two churches and a school. Two people were killed and several more injured, including two firefighters.
About half of the fires were suspicious, but most will never be investigated because the arson unit is vastly outmatched by arsonists who burn down buildings for insurance, revenge, thrills, scrap metal or blight removal.
As shown in his chart here, the Detroit Fire Department classified 112 of the blazes as suspicious and 67 as having unknown causes.
Neavling's deep dive includes a look at hardest-hit neighborhoods, via a chart of seven zip codes with the most structure fires.
He also spotlights equipment challenges resulting from "budget decisions over the past three decades have left the fire department with a skeleton crew of firefighters and a frail fleet of routinely malfunctioning rigs."
Fifteen fire rigs malfunctioned on the way to fires or at the scene, dispatch reports show. An additional two rigs couldn’t respond to fires because the fire station doors wouldn’t open.
Firefighters were further hampered by at least 16 broken hydrants.
The failures meant blazes burned longer, causing more damage and spreading to neighboring properties.
-- Alan Stamm
