LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) -- A Kentucky prison where inmates staged a fiery riot has lifted a ban on smoking but is no longer allowing prisoners to keep their own matches or lighters, a Justice Cabinet spokeswoman said Friday.
Jennifer Brislin said the policy change was implemented earlier this week at Northpoint Training Center in Burgin. Although smoking had been allowed there in designated outdoor areas, it was banned following the Aug. 21 riot in which inmates set fire to several buildings, many of them likely torched beyond repair.
Brislin said inmates had previously been allowed to keep matches and lighters with them inside the prison, but now they must request that prison employees light their cigarettes during smoking breaks. Brislin said she wasn't sure if the change would be permanent.
The kitchen, which sustained some of the worst damage, was the lone building at the prison equipped with a sprinkler system, Brislin said. It was the only one required to have one under Kentucky building code due to the presence of open flames during cooking, she said.
Kentucky Fire Marshal William Swope Jr. said in an interview that not all buildings, even the modern ones, are required to have sprinkler systems, let alone buildings like the prison, which opened as a prison in 1983.
Other specifications, such as the amount of open space and composition of a building's walls, factor into whether code requires sprinklers to be installed. Brislin said most of the walls in the prison were brick, concrete and stone, but the roofs and many of the supporting beams were wood.
"The (sprinkler) system is designed to hold the damage," Swope said. "That doesn't necessarily always happen."
All the buildings were equipped with smoke detectors and fire alarms, and Brislin said they were checked regularly and believed to be in working order.
"There has been absolutely no indication there was any operational problem with any of those safety systems," Brislin said.
Last October, the building received national accreditation for safety and security, and ability to withstand fires was part of that process, she said. Maintenance staff checks the building on a weekly basis, Brislin said, and there are routine fire evacuation drills every 90 days.
Swope said the fire marshal's report on the fire will likely be available early next week. He said he has not reviewed any of the findings but could confirm only there were several starting points for the fire.
Brislin said this wasn't the first fire at Northpoint, but it was by far the most severe. Others were small, isolated fires, either though cooking in the kitchen or electrical fires or accidents.
About 700 of the 1,200 prisoners at the medium security prison had to be moved to other institutions due to the fires.
Many of the inmates who remained at Northpoint were being housed in the gymnasium and chapel, but by Friday all had been moved back to normal living areas, Brislin said.
Other services at the prison, such as telephones and mail, were also back to normal, although visitation services had not resumed.
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