All posts by viking210

Apartment Building, Residential

Laurel, MD – Apartment fire early Easter morning controlled by sprinkler system

Howard County firefighters responded to the blaze just before 1 a.m. Easter morning in the 9000 block of Thames Meade Road. Crews found a small mattress fire that was controlled by the building’s sprinkler system.

A fire was called to the scene to determine a cause and one person was evaluated by paramedics. Two apartments were deemed “unoccupiable,” and fire officials say that number might grow as investigators evaluate other apartments in the building for damage. The American Red Cross is helping residents with any short term help they may need.

Other - Retail, Retail

Decatur, IL – Sprinkler system helps prevent spread of small business fire; Neighboring businesses spared

Kemper Willcut II expected today to be a busy day filling last-minute Easter orders. Instead, it will be spent cleaning up from an overnight fire that will keep the Del’s Popcorn Shop, 142 N. Merchant St., closed for an undetermined amount of time.

The fire, which was contained to the rear of the building, was reported shortly after midnight. Decatur Fire Department personnel arrived to find a dumpster behind the business on fire and the flames climbing the wall toward the second floor.

Battalion Chief Todd McKenzie said it appears the fire breached the building where the electricity enters the structure. Sprinklers were able to prevent the spread of the fire to the front of the building, but the entry point provided a pathway to the second floor.

The fire was contained to the one building, with neighboring businesses suffering smoke damage. Sloan’s Calzones planned to be open for lunch today after doing some minor cleanup. TapRoot Restaurant will be open tonight, with some limitations.

John Redden, owner of TapRoot, said the bar section of the restaurant would be open tonight, with the regular menu available. As employees helped to clean up and rid the business of the lingering smell of smoke, Redden hoped to have the entire restaurant opened by Saturday.

“Everybody got lucky with this,” he said. For Marina Loehr, the already scheduled off-day became a clean-up day. Scheduled to be closed in observance of Good Friday. Loehr spent Friday morning lighting candles in her store and opening the doors to get the smell of smoke out of the business.

After a look-around the store, she was optimistic there was no damage to any of the structure or the collection of dresses hanging up throughout he store.

Many store owners echoed the sentiment of McKenzie as they assessed the damage.  “It definitely could have been much worse,” McKenzie said.

McKenzie said 30 firefighters and eight trucks were on the scene and off-duty personnel were called in to cover the city in the event of another fire elsewhere. They cleared the scene at 4:32 a.m.

Office Building, Other Business

Covington, KY – Sprinklers help save Jackson Hewitt building, according to Fire Chief

Covington Fire Department investigated the cause of a blaze that was reported at about 9 p.m. Thursday. Covington Fire Chief Dan Mathew said members of his department were working with Covington Police detectives in an effort to determine how the fire started. He said there was more smoke than fire and that the sprinkler system saved the building.

The fire started in the Jackson Hewitt office, which is in the same building with Sims, according to Matt Day, who manages the store, which has been owned since 2011 by Eagle Financial Services. Day said the sprinkler system kicked on in the Jackson Hewitt building and that water from the sprinklers seeped into the basement showroom of Sims. He said he did not think there was any fire damage inside of Sims, which occupies three floors of the building.

Apartment Building, Residential

Milpitas, CA – Sprinklers help contain overnight apartment fire; No injuries

About 12:32 a.m., fire crews responded to the structure fire at 440 Dixon Landing Road in a third floor apartment, Milpitas Fire Department spokesman Sean Simonson said. By 12:47 a.m., crews had extinguished the small cooking fire, he said. Additional firefighters helped evacuate nearby apartments and kept the fire from spreading. 

Three nearby apartments in the three-story “A” building suffered water damage as a result of the activation of the automatic fire sprinkler system. No injuries to residents or fire crews were reported.

Nursing Home/Senior Living, Residential

Weaverville, CA – Sprinkler douses fire at senior apartment building

A fire in a room at the Weaver Creek Senior Apartments on Browns Ranch Road in Weaverville caused minor injuries to the occupant but was doused by water from a sprinkler head that activated Tuesday morning, March 31, Fire Chief Scott Alvord said.

The woman doesn’t remember exactly what happened, but she was wet when firefighters arrived and it is likely that she was smoking in bed and fell asleep, Alvord said. The resident used oxygen and it appears the bedding caught fire — but the blaze was put out by the sprinkler, which also woke the occupant, he said.

Government/Military, Other-Government/Military

Santa Ana, CA – Fire at John Wayne Airport contained by sprinkler system

A small fire caused some damage inside John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana early today.  The fire was reported around 1:30 a.m. near Gate 7 of Terminal A at the airport, said Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Steve Concialdi.

The fire was contained by an overhead sprinkler and extinguished by about 20 firefighters, Concialdi said. No injuries were reported and no flights were affected, he said.

Manufacturing, Other - Manufacturing

Evansville, IN – Sprinkler system helps to contain fire at industrial building

Firefighters Wednesday responded to a roof fire in part of the former Whirlpool building on U.S. 41 North now used as a warehouse.

Investigator Richard Howard said the alarm came in at 11:30 a.m. and when the first firefighters arrived two minutes later, there was heavy smoke coming from the roof area and some smoke from inside the building. Nobody was hurt in the fire and building sprinklers functioned normally.

The portion of the building where the fire occurred is used by GAF Materials Corporation to store asphalt shingles and other roofing products, Howard said. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

“The reports that we got from the people inside were that they had been smelling smoke for about an hour but they couldn’t locate the source,” Howard said. “They heard a pop and when they looked up it was the sprinkler head kicking off and that’s when they actually saw fire in upper portions of the building in the roof area.”

“They evacuated the building and called us. So, we do know that we have an operating sprinkler system inside. We are assuming right now that it helped suppress the fire, keep it under control until we could mop up,” Howard said. Howard said the cause of the fire was under investigation.

“I know that we had an incident here last week that was electrical in nature. I can tell you that is one thing I will be looking at but we also had a report that there was a crew on the roof up above that was on the roof working. So I have to find out if they were in that area and what they were doing,” Howard said.

Workers were able to go back inside Wednesday afternoon. “The building hasn’t been destroyed or anything,” he said. “There is smoke damage throughout the building and it was even forced into other areas besides their area,” Howard said. However, he said the industrial steel construction of the building made structural damage unlikely.

Whirlpool shut down refrigerator production at the Evansville plant in June 2010. The manufacturer maintained its refrigeration product design center at the site for a few years before announcing it would move that work to its Benton Harbor, Michigan headquarters. The last Whirlpool employees vacated the Evansville site in 2014.

Evansville developer The Kunkel Group acquired the Whirlpool building in 2011, rebranding it as a multi-tenant industrial park known as Park 41.

Primary / Secondary School, School / University

Midlothian, VA – Fire in storage closet at high school extinguished by sprinkler

Fire broke out Wednesday night at Clover Hill High School in Midlothian, but Chesterfield authorities said the school’s sprinkler system was able to put it out. According to authorities at the scene, a pallet inside a storage closet caught fire, but a sprinkler in the closet was able to put out the fire.

Chesterfield Fire crews reported to the scene at the new high school at 1300 Kelly Green Lane due to a report of a small fire. The cause is under investigation, but the school day will go on as planned on Thursday.

Hotel / Restaurant, Restaurant

Meridian, MS – Sprinkler system helps save Outback Steakhouse

An automatic sprinkler system apparently did enough to help save Meridian from losing its Outback Steakhouse.  Meridian Fire Chief Anthony Clayton said Tuesday that the sprinkler system did its job well enough to aid the arrival of the Meridian Fire Department, which extinguished the Monday afternoon fire at the steakhouse located at the Meridian Crossroads.

“Had it not been for the automatic sprinkler system, the building would have burned up,” Clayton said.  Clayton said his investigative team concluded the fire was caused by corrosion in its gas line.

“It had been caused from the cleaning solvents used,” he said. “The solvents had corroded the line and it failed. It ignited. Because the automatic sprinkler system activated, it kept the damage to a minimum. It allowed us time to get there and put it out.”

Clayton said the restaurant suffered smoke damage and could be reopened in a couple of days.

 

Manufacturing, Paper Mill / Saw Mill

Armstrong, BC, Canada – Sprinklers help control electrical fire at wood mill

The sprinkler system and an employee with a fire extinguisher quickly dealt with an electrical fire at the Tolko Industries mill in Armstrong this afternoon.

Fire crews responded to what they thought was a structure fire at about 1:25 p.m., Monday, March 30, but it turned out to be an electrical motor fire.

“The sprinkler head tripped and they used an extinguisher on it,” Armstrong Fire Chief Ian Cummings says. “It turned out to be very minor.”

Fire crews brought out their fans to get the smoke out of the affected building.  No one was hurt.