(AP) -- A Charleston furniture store where nine firefighters died four years ago has agreed to pay the men's families nearly $2 million to settle wrongful death lawsuits.
Attorney Kevin Dean said Friday the Sofa Super Store had agreed to pay $1.9 million to the families of the men killed in the June 2007 blaze.
The fire is thought to have been started by discarded cigarettes. A 2008 report by fire experts hired by the city concluded inadequate training, outdated tactics and aging equipment contributed to the deaths of the nine.
Federal investigators have concluded the rapidly spreading fire would have been contained if there had been sprinklers on a loading dock where it broke out.
An attorney for the store did not return a message Friday.
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