Fire piles are the mounds of debris that remain when buildings are torn down via emergency demolition.
Structures that suffer significant fire damage are evaluated by the Dayton Fire Department’s incident commander to determine their stability and potential for collapse, said Brad French, assistant fire chief.
If needed, the incident commander requests an emergency demolition to prevent harm to citizens or damage to surrounding property, he said.
A chief building official or other staff review the request and determine whether to assign a contractor to complete the emergency demolition.
Neighbors usually hate fire piles. They say the mounds are ugly and hurt property values and attract nuisance activities like illegal dumping and pests.
Dayton started 2023 with 111 piles, but it ended the year with 112, even though it paid to remove fire 28 piles, city data show.
That’s because 29 new piles were created as unstable and fire-damaged structures were taken down.
Dayton within the next couple of years hopes to demolish roughly 1,170 blighted structures using about $12.4 million of its COVID relief money and $9.5 million from other sources.
This demolition program — which is part of the Dayton Recovery Plan — is expected to include the removal of about 110 piles.
The recovery plan is the city’s spending blueprint for its $138 million in federal COVID aid.
Gondol said the plan’s funding is a great opportunity to make a big dent in the number of fire piles, and the city expects to eliminate about 54 piles this year.
But Gondol said the total number of piles is out of the city’s control and it has been frustrating that the list hasn’t shrunk.
Dayton’s demolition activities are ramping up. The city removed 188 structures and 25 garages in 2023.
That’s up from 115 structures and 17 garages in 2022 and 81 structures and 20 garages in 2021.
The city expects to eliminate 371 structures this year, and it has hundreds of blighted properties in the demolition “pipeline,” Gondol said.
Dayton City Commissioner Chris Shaw recently said blight removal is one of residents’ top concerns.
Commissioner Shaw said he’s seen an improvement in some city neighborhoods as eyesores were taken down.
“What it does is spark other kinds of investment,” he said. “It’s really impactful.”
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