THUMBS UP to the city officials, landlords and property managers who took part in a forum on fire safety and building codes held Wednesday in Augusta.

Augusta Fire Chief Roger Audette and Amanda Bartlett, executive director of the Augusta Housing Authority, spoke about the importance of safety codes in preventing deaths. They correctly pointed to the differences between two recent massive fires, one in Portland in November that killed five people and another in Augusta in December where all the tenants got out safely.

In the Portland fire, the hard-wired smoke detectors had been disconnected and at least one exit was blocked by furniture. The five victims died on the second and third floors of the building of smoke inhalation.

In the Augusta fire, at an 18-unit building on Northern Avenue, all 23 occupants survived, thanks to working smoke alarms and clear exits.

The fire in Portland shows the need for an early intervention system that proactively checks the worst buildings for code violations, so they do not deteriorate to the point that fires are made more deadly.

The challenge for city officials in Augusta, then, is to reach the landlords who were not at the meeting this week, and to keep up on inspections of the city’s aging housing stock to make sure that residents are going to sleep each night in buildings that are safe.

THUMBS DOWN to the impact of high youth unemployment rates in the last five years.

The overall unemployment rate may be down to 5.6 percent, after peaking at 10 percent during the Great Recession. But the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds remains more than twice that rate, and almost triple the rate for people in the 35-44 and 45-54 age groups.

That ratio is to be expected. The youth rate is historically higher than that of other age groups, for obvious reasons — workers that age have fewer skills, and are a fit for fewer jobs.

It is the large portion of young people who could not find work in the last half-decade, however, that is a concern.

The youth unemployment rate stayed above 16 percent for four years starting in 2009, peaking at around 19 percent in 2010. That left a lot of young Americans out of work during a crucial time in their work lives, when they are building their resumes and gaining the kind of “soft” skills necessary to be successful in the workplace later on.

That lack of experience will no doubt stunt their individual growth, and the growth of the workforce as a whole.