I think this is a good discussion though, as maybe it exposes some members of the public-at-large to some thoughts on fire-safety that they haven't considered deeply before. If so, that's a win in my book.

Dismissing someone who isn’t a fire code expert who is making claims about fire safety is just fine to me.

If we were discussing how to safely fight fires, then by all means defer to the firefighter.

To be pedantic, that may be the case for this specific building, as CA may be a state that simply adopted the relevant NFPA model code wholesale and with no changes; but it's not a true statement in the most general sense, as not all localities adopt the various NFPA codes verbatim (or at all).

That's not a statement of support for the building just that it isn't why this architect found issue.