February 21, 2003
ALBANY - At least 95 people were killed Thursday night in a huge fire at a club in West Warwick, Rhode Island. It's the second tragedy where people couldn't escape a nightclub in a week.
The Station caught fire during a pyrotechnics show. Almost all 300 people tried to leave through the front entrance, instead of the other three exits. Albany's assistant fire chief says you can do a lot more to protect yourself than any fire code will.
James Carswell said, "If you go into a building you are unfamiliar with look for the exits, if you see a door that's blocked tell management, if they won't fix us call us and we'll make sure they do it."
Current Georgia fire code requires all public gathering places to have at least two doors on separate walls. However some nightclubs and restaurants may have only one door if that was legal when they were built. Each commercial building is inspected annually for fire code violations.
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