Nearly all apartments inspected found in violation of fire code

In the wake of a District apartment building fire that displaced nearly 200 residents, Montgomery County fire chiefs said nearly all of the roughly 2,000 apartment buildings they have inspected since June have had some form of safety violation.

Fire officials were asked by county leaders last year to beef up code enforcement efforts. The process has been more time-consuming and the results more disturbing then they initially assumed, fire department leaders said. Problems range from the basic, accidental issues such as a smoke detector that’s out of batteries, to intentional malfeasance such as disconnected sprinkler systems.