Cities in the Bay Area and beyond are sending inspectors into the field to look for more potential firetraps like the Ghost Ship artists’ collective. But in the city where 36 people died, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf is sticking to her vow not to make “hasty decisions” or engage in “witch hunts.”

Assistant City Administrator Claudia Cappio said that since the Dec. 2 fire, the city has been “getting a lot of complaints” about buildings where people may be living or working illegally, “and we are responding to them.”

However, Cappio said the city has no plans to send out armies of fire and building inspectors to canvass the city for warehouses that have illegally been turned into residential, work or entertainment spaces, as the Ghost Ship allegedly had been.

That’s not the case elsewhere. San Francisco is sending inspectors to spot check “10 or 11” buildings that may pose a threat to those living in them, said Bill Strawn, spokesman for the city’s Department of Building Inspection. In Richmond, Mayor Tom Butt said that even before the fire, officials were scouring the streets — and the Internet — for commercial enterprises that weren’t paying for an annual business license or undergoing required fire inspections. They’ve found hundreds, he said.

And in Los Angeles, the fire chief issued a memo after the Oakland disaster telling firefighters to be “watchful for buildings being used in an illegal manner.”

But in Oakland, said Cappio, “We are working on a bigger framework” of how to handle illegal conversions and entertainment events staged without the required permits, such as the electronic music show being held at the Ghost Ship the night of the fire.

Schaaf, who is sensitive to artists’ and musicians’ fear that they’re going to be turned out of their makeshift homes and studios, said she “will not let our emotions lead to hasty decisions or witch hunts.”

Coming up with a big-picture approach “is really where we are focused right now,” City Administrator Sabrina Landreth said Tuesday.

Schaaf did say last week that the city was taking several “proactive next steps” to head off a repeat of the Ghost Ship fire — including “assembling a fire safety task force of national experts and local officials” to consider new safety rules.

When any recommendation will be forthcoming is up in the air.

Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed said Tuesday that the Ghost Ship had never been checked by fire inspectors because it wasn’t in a city database of commercial buildings. For all the Fire Department knew, the building was vacant, she said.

That struck some people as odd, given that the Ghost Ship’s Fruitvale district neighbors were well aware that people were coming and going from the building and that parties were a regular thing. It seemed even more odd that such activity went unnoticed by the fire station that’s located just a block away.

Asked why the city wasn’t being more active in searching out illegally converted buildings that might pose a danger, City Councilman Noel Gallo, whose district includes the Ghost Ship building, said, “That’s a good question.

“I agree ... 180 percent” that the city should be making the effort, Gallo said. “But I cannot direct people to do that, (and) when I go straight to the administration, they tell me they are going to look into it.”

There’s no great secret to how to start the process. “Just ask the fire captains in every firehouse where the weird buildings are in their district, and they would tell you,” said one Oakland firefighter, who wasn’t authorized to speak for the record. “In fact, the guys who fought that (Ghost Ship) fire knew that building was there.”

City officials say about 1,800 large businesses, high-rises, schools and other major structures are in a Fire Department database and are supposed to be checked by civilian fire inspectors. We’re told that thousands of smaller properties also in the database are turned over to the station-house crews to inspect in between their emergency calls.

No one, however, seems to be looking for buildings like the Ghost Ship — unoccupied on paper, but not in reality.

In a statement to The Chronicle’s Rachel Swan, Schaaf tried to walk a delicate line on any crackdown, saying government “can never turn a blind eye when it comes to safety” — but adding that “we don’t want these underground living, working and performing spaces to go further underground out of fear. We need them to come into the light and work with us.”

There is also the fear, expressed by those living in warehouses, that inspections will lead landlords to evict them, bring the buildings up to code and then rent out the spaces at higher rates — a touchy subject in a city where gentrification and tenant displacement has become a big political issue.

With the exception of the outspoken Gallo, the Oakland City Council has been largely silent on the issue.

“We’ve been asked not to say anything” about the fire or the city’s inspection protocols, said Councilman Larry Reid.

Who did the asking? Reid wouldn’t say.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross