Weeks after opening to the public, Le Meridien Hotel in Clayton caught fire.
Nine firefighters responded to the hotel at 7730 Bonhomme Avenue Friday morning. When they arrived, people were already being evacuated from the building.
The fire started in the 5th floor housekeeping linen closet and was reportedly controlled by the building’s fire suppression system.
Fire officials said the smoke and water damage appears to be confined to the floor.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The Duluth Fire Department responded to an alarm in a dorm at 1105 Kirby Drive Monday night.
They arrived just before 8 p-m to find a small fire in a dorm room due to a refrigerator malfunction.
The fire was contained by the building’s sprinkler system and extinguished by firefighters. The dorm room was not occupied at the time of the fire and nobody was injured.
Water from the sprinklers caused some damage to adjoining rooms which remained habitable after cleanup.
Superficial damages were estimated at 2500 dollars to the room and contents.
The fire was contained to a mattress and bed coverings. The sprinkler system prevented the fire from spreading to any other parts of the apartment unit or building. Water from the extinguishment did effect several other units in the building. The cause of the fire is still under investigation. An initial damage estimate is not known at this time.
Two people, a mother and her 11-year-old child, were evaluated by Norwalk Hospital paramedics at the scene following the 9:15 a.m. fire, but they declined a trip to the hospital.
The fire, which broke out in the master bedroom of the two-bedroom apartment, was largely held in check by the unit’s sprinkler system, but firefighters doused the remaining flames. Additionally, firefighters diverted the sprinkler water out an apartment window to limit damage to the unit.
Residents of the building temporarily were evacuated, but were allowed back in by 10:30 a.m.
The cause of the fire is under investigation by Norwalk Fire Inspectors David Burrows and Dale Roos.
Firefighters checked to make sure the fire was out and cleared up the smoke in the apartment before turning the building back over to management. Fortunately, for the other residents and the building’s owner, the building had been equipped with a fire sprinkler system after it was destroyed by a previous fire. Many older apartment complexes were built before modern codes required them to be protected by fire sprinklers. In 2008, Montgomery County Commissioner’s Court adopted a County Fire
Code after a series of disastrous fires and that code requires fire sprinklers be installed in all new multi-family buildings, including buildings like this one that are modernized or rebuilt after previous fires. Had the fire broke out in any of the other existing buildings in the complex that are not equipped with fire sprinklers, it would undoubtedly have spread further and led to extensive damage, risking the lives of residents and firefighters.
The Montgomery County Fire Marshal’s Office has been working with owners of older multi-family complexes to bring them up to modern safety standards during major renovation projects. Two of the more dramatic examples are taking place at the Woodglen and Holly Creek Apartment complexes in The Woodlands. Both are undergoing renovation and ownership is committed to installing fire sprinkler systems in every building in both complexes after past fires have left residents homeless or worse. The vast majority of the nearly 3000 annual fire deaths in the Nation occur each year in residential property, with multi-family buildings at higher risk due to the number of occupants and sheer building size.
While fire sprinklers are the best protection, and required in all new multi-family construction, tenants should make sure that there are working smoke alarms in every bedroom, hallway and living area. Under State Law, Texas Landlords are required to provide working smoke alarms in all residential rental property. Tenants are responsible for testing them, replacing batteries as needed and may not tamper with or disable any fire protection device, including fire sprinklers and smoke alarms.
The Clark County Fire Department was dispatched around 5:25 a.m. for a fire signal activation at the casino-hotel on S. Las Vegas Boulevard, Deputy Chief Thomas Touchstone said in an email.
Firefighters arrived and learned from security officers that there was smoke on the third floor, the entirety of which is unoccupied, Touchstone said.
They searched the floor and found some light smoke in the third floor’s stairwell and hallway, he said. They located a small fire in one of the rooms, with the sprinkler system already putting most of it out.
There was some moderate damage to the room, according to Touchstone. No injuries were reported, and CCFD crews remained on scene to remove smoke from the building.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
A portion of the South Dakota State penitentiary was damaged by a fire Friday night.
Authorities were called to the carpentry shop in the penitentiary at 10 p.m. after prison staff noticed the fire on security cameras, according to scanner traffic.
Staff responding to the fire encountered smoke, and the fire department was called, according to a release from the Department of Corrections.
The Sioux Falls Fire Department and a sprinkler system extinguished the blaze by 10:45 p.m., the release said. No staff or inmates were in the shop at the time of the fire and there were no injuries.
The carpentry shop suffered fire and smoke damage, but the amount of damage hasn’t been determined, the release stated.
The carpentry shop is part of Pheasantland Industries, which provides work opportunities and job skills for state prison inmates and makes road signs, customized wooden furniture and printed products.
At just after 9:30 a.m. on October 10, Bettendorf Fire Rescue was dispatched to the nursing home on Crow Creek Road in response to a structure fire.
The fire had broken out in one room in the building’s west wing, and was easily extinguished by the sprinkler system while firefighters at the scene got residents out of the building. The fire was reportedly strong enough to trip both of the room’s sprinkler heads.
Eleven residents of the west wing have been relocated to different rooms, while one occupant was sent to the hospital for evaluation. The building’s west wing is closed for repairs due to significant water and smoke damage.
The Fargo Fire Department was able to contain a vehicle fire Friday at a downtown parking garage.
Around 12:45 p.m. the Fargo Fire Department responded to a report of a vehicle on fire inside the multi-level parking garage located on the 600 block of 2nd Ave. North.
The first two units arrived on the scene within 2 minutes of being dispatched and located a vehicle on fire on the fifth floor of the garage. Crews worked to extinguish the fire with the help of the building’s sprinkler system that had two heads activate above the vehicle.
The sprinkler system helped keep the fire contained to the original vehicle, there were no injuries. The cause of the fire is still under investigation at this time.
Responders were delayed by a vehicle parked in front of a fire hydrant and one vehicle driving over a fire hose.
The Fargo Fire Department would like to remind the public that it is illegal to drive over a fire hose when it is stretched out on the street. This causes damage to the hose and places crews relying on the hose in danger if it fails. They also ask to refrain from parking in front of fire hydrants. It causes delays in establishing a water supply for fire suppression operations.
The fire at the Camden Street facility was one of two fire calls within five hours of each other early Sept. 29.
The first was at Woodlands, reported to the department at 1:21 a.m.
The caller reported a fire in one of the commercial dryers. Upon arrival, there was smoke coming from the laundry area in the rear of the building. The initial crew was able to rapidly determine the issue was contained to the laundry area and that the smoke and fire was not extending into the occupied portion of the facility, Chief Chris Whytock said.
The Woodlands staff moved all residents to their “shelter in place” areas.
The crew then made entry to the laundry and found a small fire in one of the gas-fired commercial dryers, which was being contained by the building sprinkler system. The fire was quickly extinguished and the sprinkler was shut down after determining the fire had not spread from the dryer. The smoke was then cleared from the affected portion of the building and all mutual aid units were sent back to their towns.
Rockland crews remained on scene for a short time removing water from the laundry room and restoring the building alarms systems.
The fire was determined to have been caused by oily cooking towels being in the dryer after washing had not removed all the oil
The chief said the on duty staff at the Woodlands did an excellent job rapidly notifying the fire department and moving their residents to pre-established safety areas.
The sprinkler system contained the fire to the dryer utilizing just one sprinkler head. This coupled with the fire alarm system releasing self-closing doors kept multiple barriers between the smoky fire area and the occupied section of the building just down the hall. Due to the staff, sprinklers, and alarm system no residents were displaced and the incident was concluded in less than one hour.