Report on Fatal South Carolina Sofa Store Fire Due in Fall

A federal study of a blaze that killed nine firefighters in a South Carolina city two years ago is expected to released by early fall.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is studying the June 2007 blaze which gutted the Sofa Super Store in Charleston.

The agency is using computer modeling to determine why the fire spread so quickly, why the building collapsed and whether sprinklers could have saved lives.

Agency spokesman Michael Newman says most of the research and computer modeling is done and researchers are now working on their report. There’s no definite release date, but Newman says it could be six to 12 weeks.

The institute also studied fires at the World Trade Center and a 2003 Rhode Island nightclub blaze that killed 100 people.