While on a job, I ran into what I think you are describing, and just called the local fire chief in that area and asked him if he could come to the site and give his ruling on a fire safety issue that was being argued over with the management of the building, as we had little choice when the management would simply not move or remove anything away from the EL equipment in this 3 level apartment, and that room was worse than a storage closet and had aviation 100LL fuel pushed about 1 foot in front of the 600A main disconnect to all sorts of garbage! They were forced to remove EVERYTHING FLAMABLE TO ALMOST LICKING THAT FLOOR CLEAN IN THAT EL ROOM IN THE END but, as this fire chief was an absolute enforcer of regulations and had not too long ago dealt with another situation like this one, but not as bad, so when he saw the condition that this EL room was in, (well you can imagine what came next), and by the time he was through he had written every fire code safety rule that was being violated that he could find in the book, and gave the owners 24 hours to clean it out, or be served the appropriate fine.
This happened in 1994.
I hope that this may help you in you’re quest!
Robert Wagner!
