Oregon Public Broadcasting

Portland fire safety inspectors say they’ve fallen behind and can’t keep up with required biennial inspections of nearly 40,000 public buildings in the city.  Pete Springer reports.

John Nohr is fire marshal for the city of Portland.

He says there aren’t enough code inspectors to look over public buildings every two years.

John Nohr “We’ve fallen behind on those ‘cause they take more time per inspector to do.  Examples are high rise buildings, large shopping malls, dormitories, college dormitories.”

Nohr emphasizes that this is not a safety hazard, but it doesn’t meet Portland Fire & Rescue standards for inspections.

Those standards require public buildings to be inspected by fire officials every two years.

Nohr says the backlog of inspections is due to several factors, including short staffing, after a large number of recent retirements.

The fire department has proposed changes to how code inspections are prioritized as well as ways to free up officals for technical inspections.  

The Portland City Council is considering those proposals.