April 17, 2010

Mr. Herb Goldstein, President Sofa Super Stores 8551 Rivers Ave North Charleston, SC 29406 Dear Mr. Goldstein: I came across a report on the legal action against you and I am providing the enclosed information in the hope that it still has pertinence to you. You are being blamed for a fire and the deaths of firefighters. However, the fundamental cause of nearly all fires in the United States is the dishonesty of the fire regulatory system. Unfortunately, the dishonesty is not common knowledge and the media has been reluctant to cover the story. I say it is not unlike the pedophile priest story. The molestations were occurring for at least four decades (and perhaps more than seven) during which time the media failed to report the crimes. I am enclosing a report that explains how I designed a fire sprinkler system covering 1.2 million square feet in a medical center in Kansas City, KS that was bid by a sprinkler contractor at approximately 35 cents a square foot. Previously, a standard (NFPA code) fire sprinkler system had been bid at $2.88 per square foot. Thus, proper engineering of the system reduced the cost by about 90 percent. This illustrates but one facet of the decades long corruption of the fire sprinkler system to prevent affordable fire sprinkler systems from being installed in most buildings. It is an incredible story that the public is not aware of. So, the question is this, if you could have installed a fire sprinkler system in your store with a cost about one-tenth the cost of a standard sprinkler system and paid the cost of that system within three or four years with fire insurance savings, would you have purchased that system and reduced the potential for a serious fire by 99.9 percent. I think you would have because, obviously, you are a sensible business man or you would not have been successful. The next question is this, if the local fire officials cooperated with the corrupt fire code making system (the National Fire Protection Association) to prevent affordable sprinkler systems from being installed in buildings, are not these local officials (and the NFPA) the basic cause of that out-of control fire? If the officials had allowed you to install a sensible and an affordable sprinkler system the first tiny fire would have been snuffed out before it became a danger. The problem with the fire sprinkler system is that it was proven (when electrically supervised by

a central station monitoring system) to be 99.98 percent reliable at preventing serious fires (see enclosed report by T. Seddon Duke). So, if sprinklers were allowed to be installed in all buildings the number of fires requiring the services of the remote firefighters would have been dramatically reduced. Probably this would have affected the funding for the fire services. Hence, the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) cooperated in guaranteeing that nearly all businesses and homes would be denied affordable within-the-building protection. Firefighters a mile or ten away cannot possibly compete with built in protection that is very close to 100 percent reliable at controlling the early small fire. This is especially true because the so-called response time (usually stated as 5 minutes) is more of a PR operation than a reality. The dishonesty within the fire establishment has not been limited to preventing fire sprinkler systems from being installed in most buildings. If homes were equipped with honest and reliable fire detectors nearly always the occupants would become aware of a fire almost as soon as it started, many times even as it smoldered prior to actually breaking out into flames. Warned early, it would be a simple thing to extinguish that still tiny fire. Or at least all would be able to escape without injury. But this too was unacceptable to the fire services So, fire tests were deliberately falsified to reject honest fire detectors and to make the phony smoke detector the code promoted one. I know that you will find it difficult to believe that phony (yes phony) smoke detectors were put into the fire code while honest ones were deleted. It is difficult to believe this because; it would seem, no sane person would do such a terrible thing. Well, for proof that this actually happened and that tens of thousands of children have died because of it, you need only go to this web site: www.TheWorldFireSafetyFoundation.org. Go there and then you will believe. There is more involved here than the charges against your company. The reality is that the dishonesty within the fire regulatory system has destroyed many thousands of businesses. The insurance payout on a fire loss does not begin to cover all of the costs of a fire loss. To rebuild and to regain a market share and return to a profit making operation will cost far more than the cost of rebuilding a building. Most businesses that suffer a major loss and try to regain a profit making mode, end up bankrupt. And the children who have been killed and injured by home fires are the most terrible results of the fire regulatory dishonesty. Sincerely,

Richard M. Patton, Fire Protection Engineer