All posts by viking210

Apartment Building, Residential

Evanston, IL – Apartment fire started by careless smoker kept in check by sprinkler system

**NO MEDIA COVERAGE – Fire Department reported** The Northern Illinois Fire Sprinkler Advisory Board reports a successful fire sprinkler activation at the Claridge Apartments in Evanston, Illinois at 3:30 a.m. on Monday, May 9, 2016. According to the report, a careless smoker set a pile of clothing on her bed ablaze. She apparently panicked and threw the pile into the bathtub and ran away. The sprinkler head above the bed extinguished the smoldering mattress. In the bathroom, the shower curtain and towels caught fire. A sprinkler head in the bathroom activated and kept the fire in check until Evanston Fire department arrived.

Nursing Home/Senior Living, Residential

Rutland, VT – Sprinklers knock down fire in apartment building for elderly and disabled

Four people were transported to the hospital and ten people are displaced after a multi-unit apartment fire in Rutland Saturday.  Rutland Deputy Fire Chief Jim Miles says the call came in just after 4pm from Bardwell House, a multi-unit apartment building for the elderly and people who are handicapped.

The cause of the fire was related to cooking. The fire was contained to one apartment and was mostly taken down by sprinklers, officials say. That apartment sustained fire damage.  Four people were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation.

Nine other rooms sustained severe water damage by the sprinkler system, according to Deputy Chief Miles.  The New Hampshire/Vermont region of the American Red Cross is assisting those affected.

College/University (on campus), School / University

New Paltz, NY – Firefighters credit sprinkler system for containing fire in university’s fine arts building

A fire Thursday night damaged a studio in the Fine Arts Building at SUNY New Paltz, and the building will be closed until Monday, according to the college. The Graphic Design Thesis Show, from 4-7 p.m. Friday in the building’s rotunda, was scheduled to go on as planned, however, according to a message sent to students, staff and faculty.

The fire began in the building’s wood and sculpture studio, on the first floor, according to a statement from the college. There were no injuries. Firefighters responding to an automatic alarm and reports of smoke in the building discovered “heavy smoke and heat” in the first-floor hallway, the New Paltz Fire Department said Friday on its Facebook page.

They then found the blaze and extinguished it, the department said. The fire department credited “a well maintained sprinkler system” with containing the blaze to the room in which it began. The building’s fire alarm system was back in service Friday, according to the college.

 An email sent to the college community Friday afternoon said the Fine Arts Building’s studios were closed to students but were expected to reopen Monday morning. No one will be allowed to work in the building until Monday as personnel repair water damage, the email stated.  Information about how the fire might have started and what time it was reported was not immediately available

Residential, Single Family Home

Camas, WA – Fire in house under construction is extinguished by sprinklers

A fire started in a Camas home under construction sometime over the weekend, and fire sprinklers installed in the house put out the fire before anyone noticed.

The home, at 3210 N.W. Hood Court, Camas, is in the sheetrock phase of construction, according to an email from Randy Miller, deputy fire marshal at the Camas-Washougal Fire Department, and the fire started in the laundry room wall and burned into the home’s entry way and attic.

Even though there were plastic protective cups over the sprinkler heads to protect them during construction, “the plastic covers still melted away in time for the two heads that were heat activated to control and extinguish the fire,” Miller wrote.

The fire department was called Monday morning after the subdivision supervisor for Pahlisch Homes unlocked the house and saw the damage. Fire Marshal Ron Schumacher and Miller investigated the fire, and “give credit to the fire sprinklers for avoiding to have our fire crews dispatched to a fully involved structure fire with exposures in the form of other homes under construction,” Miller wrote.

This was the fourth Camas house fire put out by a home sprinkler system, according to Miller. At the Camas city council meeting on April 18, the councilors voted unanimously in favor of an ordinance requiring all newly built homes in the city to contain fire sprinklers, although many residents in Camas have been installing them in new homes for more than a decade because of a fee waiver the city put in place in 2003.

Last year, 215 new homes were built in Camas, and all but one of them were built with a fire sprinkler system.

 

Apartment Building, Residential

Kalamazoo, MI – Sprinkler system credited with containing apartment fire to room of origin; No injuries

**NO MEDIA COVERAGE – Fire Department Reported**

Friday night May 6, 2016 at 10:09 pm the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety responded to a report of a fire in an 11 unit apartment building in the 1000 block of Washington Avenue. A couch fire which was releasing a large amount of black smoke and heat was suppressed by the sprinkler system.  The fire was contained to the room of origin.  No one was hurt and after the suppression system was placed back into service the occupants of 9 of the 11 units were safely back into their homes.  The sprinkler system was praised for preventing further damage to the building

Office Building, Other Business

Boise, ID – Sprinkler system extinguishes fire in downtown commercial building

Boise Fire says a small fire that broke out at the Charles Schwab building has been ruled accidental. Firefighters were called to the building, near 9th and Main Streets, just after 6:30 p.m. last Sunday.

While they found smoke inside, crews say the building’s sprinkler system activated and extinguished the fire. A Boise Fire spokeswoman says there was moderate damage to the building.

On Monday, Boise Fire says an employee from the building had taken laundry home to wash. After it was clean, he placed the warm laundry in a crate and brought it back to the business. The heat, mixed with cooking oil remnants, sparked the fire, Boise Fire says.

Hospital/Care Facility, Hospital/Medical Clinic

Montreal, QC, Canada – Arson fire at medical clinic performing gender change surgeries is extinguished by sprinkler system

Police are seeking a male suspect in relation to a suspicious fire that targeted the Centre métropolitain de chirurgie in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough in Montreal, the only medical clinic in Canada that offers gender reassignment surgery.

Firefighters were alerted to a fire at the clinic at 8:44 p.m. Monday. About 20 firefighters rushed to the scene, but the fire was extinguished by an automatic sprinkler system. The fire was in an operating room, according to Montreal Fire Prevention Service spokesperson Mélanie Drouin. There were a few staff members and patients in the building at the time but they got out before firefighters arrived.

Drouin said damages are estimated by fire department officials at about $700,000. Medical equipment was damaged by water and smoke, she said. The clinic provides a variety of plastic surgeries and body surgeries, including breast augmentation or reduction, facelifts, liposuction and gender reassignment surgery (GRS).

The news spread quickly among members of the transgender community in Montreal and across Canada. Some are concerned that the fire will exacerbate the already lengthy waiting periods for gender reassignment surgery at the clinic. There is also speculation as to whether the clinic was targeted because it offers GRS.

“It would certainly seem relevant that the arson targeted the only clinic in Canada that currently provides GRS and other trans-related surgeries — especially at a time when things are becoming increasingly polarized on trans issues,” said Mercedes Allen, an advocate for transsexual and transgender communities in Alberta who writes on equality, human rights, LGBT and sexual minority issues in Canada.

“Something like this is certainly not going to help a community that already feels targeted. I also hope for the sake of the surgeons and staff that they too won’t have to start living in fear of violence. However, I’d also want to be careful not to be too quick to assume that this is hate-motivated,” Allen said.

Constable Manuel Couture, a Montreal police spokesperson, said investigators are aware of the services offered by the clinic, but had not, to his knowledge, classified the fire as a suspected hate crime by Tuesday afternoon.

“I don’t have any information right now to indicate that this was some kind of hate crime, but investigators are aware of that and as soon as they have the slightest suspicion that something could be a hate crime, they transfer it to the Hate Crimes Unit,” Couture said.

“This is devastating for trans health care,” Sophia Banks, a Montreal-based photographer and trans-rights advocate told the National Post. “People are freaking out” about wait times and how long the clinic will be closed. She said they’re also concerned about why this happened

Hotel / Motel, Hotel / Restaurant

Madison, WI – Laundry fire at Radisson Hotel contained by sprinkler system

Guests staying at the Radisson Hotel at 517 Grand Canyon Drive were able to return to their rooms on Friday night after they were temporarily displaced by a small laundry room fire. The Madison Fire Department was called to the hotel around 11:50 p.m. to address smoke that was coming from a utility room on the first floor, according to spokeswoman Amanda Hornung.

When firefighters arrived, the carpet outside the first floor laundry room was soaked with water, said Hornung. Officials said that the crew found a moderate level of smoke, but no heat or active fire. Firefighters did report that one sprinkler head had been activated in the laundry room and that the fire was contained to a small area in the room.

Primary / Secondary School, School / University

Port Alberni, BC, Canada – Sprinklers limit spread of fire that started outside elementary school

A fire that broke out in a motor home parked at E.J. Dunn Elementary School just before 7 p.m. today (May 5) caused only minor smoke and water damage to the school building itself. E.J. Dunn will be open tomorrow (May 5).

“It started at the motor home and spread to another car,” said Port Alberni Fire Department Deputy Chief Wes Patterson. Three Port Alberni trucks and one Beaver Creek Volunteer Fire Department truck responded to the blaze, along with one RCMP car and an ambulance.

“There’s water damage from the sprinkler that’s gone off and a little smoke damage inside and then the front entrance doors [are damaged] but all in all it was very lucky. The building and the controls and the sprinkler system did what it was supposed to do which limited the spread of the fire. Structurally the school is fine.”

Patterson said that the motor home belonged to one of the workers at the school but that the cause of the fire is yet to be determined. One person was taken to West Coast General Hospital as a result of the blaze, he added.

“One person was taken to the hospital but not necessarily by B.C. Ambulance. I don’t know the extent of his injuries at this point.”

Manufacturing, Manufacturing Plant

Ellensburg, WA – Business owner thankful that sprinklers helped stop fire at wood products company

A sprinkler system and quick response by firefighters helped limit damage from a fire at Wood Products Northwest in Ellensburg on Tuesday night.

It was caused by spontaneous combustion of rags soaked in oil-based paint.

Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue received an alarm call about a sprinkler activation at 11:15 p.m. Tuesday at 409 S. Water St. KVFR Deputy Chief Rich Elliott said the department upgraded the alarm to a full response, and found a fire in a room used for cabinet finishes.

“The sprinkler system activated and was keeping the fire under control,” he said.

No one was in the building at the time.

Robert Hamlin, who owns the business with his wife, said he is thankful the sprinklers and fire alarm activated and for KVFR’s quick response.

When he arrived on scene at about midnight, much of the fire was already out, he said.

The fire was in the back of the business’ finish department, which has a three-hour firewall.

“Everything went the best it could. This could have been a huge disaster,” he said. “Combustibles, once they get going, can overwhelm the sprinkler system.”

Firefighters extinguished the fire and spent a few hours helping with water removal.

Elliott said the fire was determined to be accidental. Hamlin said he is still figuring out the extent of the damages, but said it appeared to mostly be water damage.

He hopes his 18 employees can return to work within the next 48 hours.