Instead of installing fire walls as the project was built, contractors chose to frame the entire 450-unit complex all at once.

That, city and fire officials say, allowed the blaze to race unchecked through acres of tinder- dry lumber in less than an hour.

``There was nothing to contain this fire,'' said Tampa Mayor Dick Greco, pointing to stacks of smoldering fire-resistant drywall, waiting to be installed once the apartments were roofed and sided. ``Once it started it was like a bonfire.''

Firefighters agreed. The apartment complex had no wallboard or fire wall protection up yet. That allowed the flames to spread quickly, Tampa Fire Rescue Capt. Bill Wade said.

Had the fire walls been installed as the units were built, it might have slowed down the flames considerably, area builders said.

But, they added, efficiency and low cost have made all-at- once framing standard practice across the country.

``All the frame construction that's going on in Tampa right now are all potential tinderboxes,'' said Wayne Fernandez of J.O. DeLotto & Sons Inc., a Tampa construction company. ``But it's just a very cost-effective way of building.''

Architects for the Ybor City project had planned to install fire walls made of fire-resistant gypsum wallboard. That would have provided some protection.

Installing fire walls as the units were built still might not have saved the project, one contractor said, but it would have at least slowed the blaze and reduced its intensity.

``It's a good idea,'' said John Prahl, president of Canco General Contractors. ``Until that Sheetrock goes up, you don't have any protection at all.''

The trouble is, he said, the method is also slower and more expensive than framing the project all at once.

``It would probably add as much as 10 percent to the cost and four or five months in time,'' Prahl said.

The wood-frame construction project wasn't the first in Tampa Bay to fall victim to fire. In an almost identical 1988 fire, flames tore through a trio of $1 million apartment buildings under construction in St. Petersburg.

And last year, fire leveled the four-building Windemere Apartments being built in Riverview, burning the wood-frame construction site down to concrete slabs.

Steve LaBrake, director of Business and Community Services, called debate over the project's construction method ``hindsight.''

``Second-guessing is something that always happens,'' he said. ``Unless that entire complex had been sealed up, it still would have been a total loss.''

The contractor, in fact, had begun to side and roof the first units built on the site, LaBrake said, but had not made them weatherproof enough to install fire walls.

Once built of brick, fire walls are now largely made of lighter, fire-rated gypsum sheets. Wood framing between the sheets is also sprayed with a fire-retardant chemical.

``I know it sounds crazy, but the contention is that it's actually safer'' than brick, LaBrake said. ``Brick has a tendency for the mortar to fall out, creating air spaces for the fire to go through.''

Prahl disagreed. He's been in 20-year-old buildings with brick fire walls that are as tight as the day they were built.

``You can put a brick in the middle of a fire and it won't burn,'' he said.