By DANI BLACKBURN
Montague County Commissioners accepted a Life Safety Egress Compliance Study, outlining solutions for fire exit issues in the courthouse when they met on Monday.
The study was authorized earlier this month after a meeting with representatives of the State Fire Marshal’s Office and James Malanaphy with the Texas Historical Commission.
The meeting helped officials gain direction in correcting the fire exit problems in its 104-year-old courthouse. It was one of 14 violations of the Life Safety Code outlined in a July fire safety inspection report by James Scott McAnallen, deputy state fire marshal.
Eleven of the 14 violations were repaired swiftly, while county officials have been working to repair the other violations,including installing a detection system in the building. A second fire escape and exit from the third and fourth floor is the most complex problem.
Dick Bundy, president of the architectural firm Bundy, Young, Sims and Potter Architects, Wichita Falls, offered proposed modifications that would include the existing parole office being dedicated as an exit way and area of refuge for the third and fourth floors.

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