Category Archives: Apartment Building

Apartment Building, Residential, Residential High Rise

St. Paul, MN – Fire on 10th-floor of residential high-rise contained by fire sprinklers

Hundreds of people were forced from a St. Paul high-rise by a fire on Monday night, but sprinklers helped contain the damage.

The fire started just after 8 p.m. in the 16-story Wilder Park senior high-rise a few blocks from the junction of Interstate 35E and Ayd Mill Road.

Resident Diane Welch said she could hear the fire burning right above her 10th-floor unit as alarms sounded.

“And I knew things were crumbling, because I could hear it in the walls, like if you put sand through a sifter,” she said. 

Deputy Fire Chief Roy Mokosso said that more than 60 firefighters responded to fight the fire and evacuate residents. Paramedics stood by and St. Paul police helped search the building and get residents into waiting buses.

Some residents who could not use the stairs were left in place, due to what the building’s governing board told residents was serious damage to the elevators.

Mokosso said at least some areas in the building had sprinklers and the system had activated. Fire investigators were at the scene on Monday night, trying to determine the cause of the fire.

A high-rise fire at a Minneapolis Public Housing building without sprinklers killed five people in November.

Apartment Building, Residential

Oklahoma City, OK – Apartment sprinkler system puts out fire suspected to be started by a Molotov cocktail

An investigation is underway after an apartment fire officials believe was started by a Molotov cocktail.

Fire crews were called to the West Chase apartments on NW 23rd street near Ann Arbor around 12:30 AM Friday.

A witness on scene said they saw one person running, after placing a Molotov cocktail outside of a building at the complex.

The fire was small and was put out by the apartment’s sprinkler system.

No one was inside the unit at the time.

Apartment Building, Residential

Bristol, VA – Apartment kitchen fire controlled by sprinkler system

Five people were rescued Monday night when firefighters responded to a blaze in one unit at Douglass School Apartments in Bristol, Virginia.

Multiple crews arrived at the scene after the fire was reported at 9:17 p.m. at the apartment complex off Oakview Avenue, according to Mike Armstrong, the city’s fire chief.

Firefighters located the fire in the kitchen area of an apartment, where it appeared to have started on a stovetop with some type of combustible material, Armstrong said.

A sprinkler system contained the fire in the apartment where it started, but surrounding apartments still suffered water damage, he said.

A total of five occupants were evacuated from various apartments, and one person was treated for smoke inhalation but was not transported to a hospital, Armstrong said. No other injuries were reported.

Although the fire damage was contained, water damage in other apartments displaced at least two occupants, and the Red Cross is assisting them, he said.

The fire was determined to be accidental, the fire chief said.

Apartment Building, Residential

Forest Grove, OR – Sprinklers extinguish fire sparked while residents move into new apartment; No injuries

Residents accidentally sparked a fire while moving into their new apartment on Wednesday evening, according to Forest Grove Fire & Rescue.

The fire at the Jesse Quinn Apartments in downtown Forest Grove occurred in a second floor unit. Firefighters arrived to find the flames had been extinguished by fire sprinklers. Crews then worked to mitigate the water from the sprinkler activation. They found water in two neighboring units and a tap house below.

Investigators say the residents while moving in had set a box on the stove, most likely accidentally turning it on at the same time. The box started to burn as they were bringing additional items up to the apartment.

Firefighters say three apartments are uninhabitable right now. Affected families are being assisted by the Red Cross. The tap house below, The Growler Garage, is closed until water damage can be mitigated and electrical wiring can be assessed, according to Forest Grove Fire & Rescue.

Firefighters from Cornelius, Hillsboro, and Banks assisted at the scene. Forest Grove police officers and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office also helped.

Apartment Building, Residential

Charleston, SC – Apartment kitchen fire controlled by fire sprinklers; No injuries reported

The Charleston Fire Department (CFD), James Island Fire Department, Charleston County EMS, and Charleston Police Department responded to a fire at the 35 Folly Luxury Apartment building just before 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday.

According to CFD, dispatch was alerted to the fire by an automatic fire alarm as well as a 911 call from a resident. Crews responded within four minutes of the call.

Upon arrival, firefighters “encountered light smoke and searched the building.” They discovered that a small fire originated in the kitchen of an apartment, and was put out by the sprinkler system. No injuries were reported.

Firefighters “verified the fire had been extinguished, controlled the water to the system, and ventilated the smoke from the building.”

Apartment Building, Residential

Chelmsford, MA – Overhead sprinkler contains fire in apartment unit to chair it originated in

A fire last Friday at an apartment complex in which a woman suffered burns remains under investigation, Fire Chief Gary Ryan said.

Ryan said the Fire Department responded at 9:40 p.m. on May 1 to The Kinloch Apartments for a report of smoke from a building in the complex.

An alarm on the building’s fourth floor alerted the responding crew, who discovered smoke coming from a fourth-floor dwelling unit, Ryan said. The crew forced entry into the unit, and rescued a female resident from a burning chair.

The woman was extricated and taken by medical helicopter to Boston Trauma Center for burns, Ryan said.

An overhead sprinkler contained the fire to the chair, although the unit and a few others nearby sustained some water damage.

Apartment Building, Residential

Madison, WI – Single sprinkler head extinguishes apartment fire

One person was taken to the hospital following a fire in a Sun Prairie apartment.

According to the Sun Prairie Fire Department, Sun Prairie Emergency Services responded to the 1000 block of O’Keefe Avenue for an occupant reporting the smell of smoke and an active fire alarm system on Thursday.

Officials found a fire inside an apartment unit that had been extinguished by a single fire sprinkler.

One resident was taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, and all other occupants were able to return to their units. Damage is estimated at $15,000 in one unit of the 28-unit apartment building.

According to the fire department, initial reports indicate the occupant attempted to extinguish the fire before calling 911. If you discover a fire, get to a safe location and immediately call 911 and activate the fire alarm system if present. Officials says this is the second incident on OKeefe Ave this year that someone attempted to extinguish a fire themselves in lieu of getting out and calling 911.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Apartment Building, Residential

duluth, MN – Kitchen fire at apartment complex contained by fire sprinklers; No injuries reported

The Duluth Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at the Bluestone Flats Apartments at 133 Summit Street on Thursday afternoon.

Sprinklers had been activated and the building was evacuated for a fire inside a common kitchen area on the first floor of the building.

Damage from the fire, smoke and water from the sprinkler system was estimated at 10 thousand dollars.

The cause was listed as accidental and there were no injuries.

Apartment Building, Residential

Johnston, IA – Sprinkler head put out apartment kitchen fire

First responders said a a sprinkler head helped put out a kitchen fire at a Johnston apartment complex Wednesday afternoon.

Johnston-Grimes Metropolitan firefighters were called to the Providence Point Apartments, in the 6200 block of NW 106th Street, in Johnston. 

When they arrived, they were notified of a grease fire in the kitchen of a second-floor apartments. Firefighters found light smoke. 

Firefighters said because of the fire and water damage from the sprinkler system, people living in two apartments were displaced.

Apartment Building, Residential

Loveland, CO – Sprinkler system saves 40 year old apartment building from complete loss; No injuries reported

Residents escaped uninjured from a fire at the Lovelander Hotel Apartments on Monday night after an evaporative cooler on the building’s north side caught fire.

The fire in the historic three-story building at 111 E. Fourth St. started around 10 p.m. between the building’s first and second floors, according to an email sent Tuesday morning by Loveland Fire Rescue Authority division chief and fire marshal Ned Sparks.

About 45 to 50 residents were either asleep or getting ready to go to bed, according to Sparks and the building’s owner, Astrid, who goes by one name. Fire Chief Mark Miller said no residents or firefighters were harmed.

Those residents have been displaced and won’t be able to return for one or two days, said Astrid, who was working through the channels to get electricity restored and have the building declared inhabitable again.

Sparks and Astrid said the fire sprinkler system that she had installed four months ago in the 40-apartment building saved many lives.

“I am convinced this fire would have had a huge loss of life and most likely the building would have been lost (quite probable the Elks Club and Cactus Grille too),” Sparks said in his email.

“Seeing firsthand how many of the people survived who would have perished in a catastrophic fire, I am reminded why we do what we do,” Sparks said.

In recent years, the Loveland Fire Rescue Authority has worked with the owners of the Lovelander  and two other historic buildings downtown to have sprinkler systems installed.

Historic buildings are quick to burn, and the fires are difficult to fight once they start, Sparks said.

“Once it got going, we couldn’t have stopped it,” Sparks said. “The interstitial space in this area is massive and had the fire not been suppressed would have run through this space unchecked.”

But because of the sprinklers, the fire never really took off.

Two residents who saw the fire and helped evacuate their neighbors said a swamp cooler, which wasn’t running, caught fire.

“I was just about to go to bed when I smelled something funny,” said Jamie Bridgeman, the resident manager who lives on the second floor directly above the cooler with her husband. “Then I started seeing smoke.”

“One of my residents had gotten off work and pulled up behind the building. She started screaming ‘fire!’ I looked out my window, and my swamp cooler was engulfed in flames,” said Bridgeman, who said her hair was singed by the fire. “I just started screaming ‘fire’ and came down here and pulled the alarm.

“Then I went back up and stood in the middle and screamed, ‘Fire! Everybody get out,” she said.

Two residents got fire extinguishers from the hallway and stood outside the building, spraying onto the fire, she said.

Steve Dupont, a resident of the first floor, said most residents used the metal fire escapes on the back side of the building.

“Everybody was coming out like they were supposed to,” he said.

On Tuesday afternoon, he was standing outside the Lovelander, waiting to go inside to help retrieve the belongings of a friend whose nearby apartment was damaged by a sprinkler head that activated. Astrid said the ceiling fell in that apartment because of the water damage.

Astrid was busy on the phone Tuesday, talking with an electrical contractor about getting the power restored. He told her that she would need an engineer to verify that the structure still was sound, even though she said the fire was mostly confined to the exterior cooler unit.

“Let’s get this underway right now,” she said.

Astrid expressed concern for her residents, whom she described as normally just a few hundred dollars away from homelessness — the working poor, elderly people and students.

“We really could use a little help,” she said, breaking down in tears under her coronavirus face mask when asked what kind of help.

“They’re all law-abiding, very decent citizens of Loveland,” she said. “I wish they could come back this afternoon, but it sounds like 24 to 48 hours.”

Bridgeman, the manager, said Sparks gave residents vouchers for motel rooms Monday night, and eight people were able to take rooms. The rest, such as herself and her husband, either stayed with friends or paid for motel rooms themselves, although they couldn’t really afford it.

Bridgeman said she had been talking with the American Red Cross about getting more vouchers to house the displaced residents until they could move back in.

Astrid was busy on the phone Tuesday, talking with an electrical contractor about getting the power restored. He told her that she would need an engineer to verify that the structure still was sound, even though she said the fire was mostly confined to the exterior cooler unit.

“Let’s get this underway right now,” she said.

Astrid expressed concern for her residents, whom she described as normally just a few hundred dollars away from homelessness — the working poor, elderly people and students.

“We really could use a little help,” she said, breaking down in tears under her coronavirus face mask when asked what kind of help.

“They’re all law-abiding, very decent citizens of Loveland,” she said. “I wish they could come back this afternoon, but it sounds like 24 to 48 hours.”

Bridgeman, the manager, said Sparks gave residents vouchers for motel rooms Monday night, and eight people were able to take rooms. The rest, such as herself and her husband, either stayed with friends or paid for motel rooms themselves, although they couldn’t really afford it.

Bridgeman said she had been talking with the American Red Cross about getting more vouchers to house the displaced residents until they could move back in.