By Ted Clifford
The State
COLUMBIA, S.C. — James Muller was still in high school when he knew that he wanted to be a firefighter.
By 25, he was married, the father to a young son and serving with the Irmo Fire District. On May 26, 2023, he was killed while assisting the Columbia-Richland Fire Department in battling an apartment fire at the Tropical Ridge Apartments near the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina.
While fighting the fire at its source inside of a second floor kitchen, Muller and three other Irmo firefighters were buried by debris when the two floors above collapsed on top of them. According to a lawsuit filed by Muller’s widow, the collapse was caused when the Columbia Fire Department had turned their powerful “deck guns” on the roof, unleashing “enormous” amounts of water on the fire-weakened building.
Once trapped, Muller’s Mayday call was lost amid busy radio traffic and simple misunderstandings. Muller died of “mechanical asphyxiation” after remaining trapped under debris for at least 45 minutes, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit, filed April 23 by Emma Muller against the City of Columbia and Richland County alleges that Muller’s death was caused by inadequate training, miscommunications between personnel and a failure to maintain clear channels of communication during the fire.
Emma Muller’s attorney, Brian Barnwell of Columbia law firm Rikard & Protopapas, LLC, told The State they didn’t wish to comment on the lawsuit.
The legal action comes roughly two weeks after the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) released a report outlining how critical miscommunications at the scene of the fire led to Muller’s death.
The fatal blaze was started by a grease fire inside of a kitchen located at the back of a second floor apartment. Muller and other firefighters from the Irmo Fire District were responding to the two alarm fire as part of an automatic aid agreement. While the fire was in the Columbia Fire Department’s jurisdiction, the agreement allows the closest fire department to respond to an emergency.
At Tropical Ridge, the Columbia Fire Department assumed command over the scene because the fire was in their jurisdiction. As a result, they were responsible for “organizing the emergency response efforts and maintaining safety,” according to the lawsuit.
Representatives for the Columbia-Richland Fire Department and the city of Columbia said they were unable to comment on pending litigation. Richland County didn’t immediately respond to The State’s request for comment.
The Irmo Fire District was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit and similarly declined to comment.
The South Carolina Occupational Safety and Health Administration also issued a number of citations and fines, totaling $3,600, against both the Irmo Fire District and the Columbia-Richland Fire Department. Irmo is contesting those fines.
What happened at the Tropical Ridge fire?
Fires were not uncommon at the Tropical Ridge apartments. Three other units at the apartment complex, located at 167 Stoneridge Drive in Columbia, had previously been destroyed in fires.
The Columbia Fire Department responded to fires at the apartment complex in 2013 and again in 2017, when two firefighters were injured. The apartments, made up of units connected by open breezeways, were built with lightweight wooden construction. Floors were supported by parallel wooden trusses that allows fire to rapidly spread horizontally and can collapse in as little as five minutes after being exposed to an open flame, according to the NIOSH report.
The lawsuit additionally described how the building had “open chimney chases,” which did not have any fire stops.
“The construction of the apartment complex allowed for rapid and unrestricted fire spread,” according to the lawsuit. “This information was known or should have been known by the Columbia Fire Department Incident Command.”
As Muller and other Irmo firefighters prepared to swap in for a team of Columbia firefighters, the team they were replacing inside of the building warned them that the floor was sagging. This information was not clearly communicated with supervisors, according to the lawsuit.
Around 4:44 p.m., while Muller and three other Irmo firefighters fought the fire inside of the kitchen, a team of Columbia firefighters on the floor above were knocking down walls to try and stop the spread of the flames while debris began to fall from the building, according to the NIOSH report.
- Fire Captain Joe Hunter and Fire Lieutenant Chrissy Sarnowsky bring their firefighting skills and resilience to the latest season of CBS’s ‘Survivor.’
As the two teams of firefighters worked inside, the deck guns, water cannons mounted to fire engines, turned their powerful jets on the weakened building. Soon, the weight of the water brought the top two floors down on the firefighters.
“These deck guns should not have been used while people were in the building,” according to the lawsuit.
Both teams of firefighters sent out Mayday calls, the lawsuit says, but in the chaos, Muller’s call was ignored. For a time, he remained conscious and talking while waiting for help.
The NIOSH report fills in many of the details of the confusing scene. Following the building’s partial collapse, neither team of firefighters were aware that anyone else was trapped, despite knowing that there were other firefighters in the building. Each crew assumed that the Mayday calls they were hearing referred to them. Some Mayday calls weren’t received at all because of the heavy radio traffic. As a result, different teams of rescuers each assumed that they had found the only people trapped in the building, according to the report.
After all firefighters except for Muller were rescued, the Columbia Fire Department’s incident command believed all Mayday calls were resolved. As a result they “ignored Mr. Muller’s separate mayday call, and did not send any additional aid,” according to the lawsuit.
It wasn’t until around 5:07 p.m. that a supervisor at the scene reported an active Mayday alert, according to the NIOSH report. Muller remained trapped until a rescuer, tunneling on his stomach through the debris, was able to cut Muller free and drag him out of the collapsed building.
CPR and other life saving measures were attempted at the scene, but Muller was pronounced dead after being rushed to the hospital.
—
©2025 The State. Visit thestate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.