details of the trump transition with rnc communications director sean spicer. so now we move on to california and news on that deadly fire in oakland. 36 people confirmed dead as officials have now finished the search of the warehouse, the so-called ghost ship e resulted in flames with dozens of people sill inside last friday. federal authorities from atf are moving in to examine the debris. a leading theory points to an electrical fire. this a nbc news obtains copies of the building code violations that could very well play a part in the investigation. nbc s steve patterson has been on the scene in oakland for us from the beginning. steve, what do we know about the violations? what are they saying? and currently what are investigators specifically looking for? reporter: well, let s talk about the violations. first, a clear history that this property has been on the radar of regulators for quite some time, ten violations in the course of two decades dating back to 1998 when the own
again, when we brief later, we ll certainly let the experts in those fields manage those questions. okay? we ll we ll take a look at approximately 2:00 but we ll certainly notify you if there s going to be change in that time. thank you very much. so, that was a press conference with oakland police discussing the ongoing process of going through that warehouse after that devastating and deadly fire over the weekend. she talked about turning off the power so they could get a large crane in there to pull back part of the building that has collapsed and how it s a painstaking, tedious process because they re still in a recovery process. 36 people already confirmed dead. they haven t made it all the way through the building and there s fear there could be more victims inside. we know there were some building code violations previously at this warehouse. a criminal investigation has been opened. and we re starting to hear more
as soon as he arrives. but first, there are also reports that there were heating problems from the building. wnbc reporting that there had been complaints of no heat in the building. that con ed utility was called to the scene. what can you tell us about that? reporter: well, there were reports, con ed confirmed that they were on their way to the scene of this explosion to investigate reports of a gas leak when the explosion happened just after 9:00 this morning eastern time. there are also concerns expressed by neighbors that there are a number of building code violations that had not been addressed by the landlord at this building over the past months or weeks. and some of that involved heating problems apparently. so there s that that s going to be investigated as well. the mayor is expected to speak at the top of the hour. at this point, there s still a lot going on out here there. are still dozens of emergency vehicles at the scene up there that you can see up the hill. there s
there was a gas leak. a gas leak in a building confined to certain areas could possibly create an explosion of that type. captain al fuentes, thank you for joining us. joining me now on the phone is another very different perspective, state senator that has already spoken out on some of these issues, highlighting the building code violations. 60 open housing violations, i believe. senator, thank you for joining us. what do you know about what s going on on the ground? first of all, there are 60 open violations. 26 c violations. can you explain what that means? inspectors have determined that in some apartments there were smoke detectors missing. so this is also a big problem.
the post alleging that he is a slumlord, a lot of building code violations. we are looking into all of this and have seen there are some code violations in many of the buildings he owned. they go on to allege he is a slumlord and his friends and family are saying, it is almost as if you are justifying what happened here. they show he had many enemies. we also talk about increasing reward. they may have more to say about this. seven children? father of seven children. it is so distressing no matter what. this is just a picture with one of them. kids ultimately can see those