"We've got three commercial fire hoses on every floor," he said. "We've got three CO2 bottles, big ones, on every floor. When we did the building originally, we thought we have enough equipment at the time, so the fire will never transfer to another unit. We have 45-minute fire doors, so if we have a fire, we can keep it to one unit."



Schmidt is grateful firefighters contained the blaze when they did. A day after the fire, he went home to a fire-damaged door and entry way, but remarkably, his unit was the only one of the Ewa end of the building to get through the fire otherwise intact.



"We had great firefighting equipment. We just didn't use it," he said. "There was no education. I don't think there's been a fire drill or fire education in this building in 20 years."



He does credit the "good bones" of what he called a well-built, well-designed building. Schmidt considers the Marco Polo one of best built concrete structures in Hawaii. Contractors Reed and Martin also built the State Capitol.



"Solid, concrete and pre-stressed -- it’s the best.” said Schmidt. It was designed to accommodate natural, tradewind ventilation, but he thinks those winds also helped to feed the fire.