Category Archives: Apartment Building

Apartment Building, Residential

Chattanooga, TN – No one hurt in early morning apartment fire suppressed by sprinkler system

An early morning fire last left a family of five displaced.  Chattanooga firefighters were called to the Stoneridge Apartments about an automatic fire alarm going off around 3:00 am Tuesday morning.  Firefighters were told by some residents that there was a small fire in a vacant apartment on the second floor.  The buildings sprinkler system had been activated. Firefighters only had to stomp out the remaining fire.  The main damage caused by the fire was damage from water that leaked into the apartment below.  Red Cross volunteers are helping the family because the power to their apartment had to be turned off.  The cause of the fire is being investigated. No one was hurt.

Apartment Building, Residential

Bridgeport, CT – Apartment kitchen fire extinguished by sprinkler system; No injuries

Ten people were displaced after a kitchen fire broke out in a unit of a Church Street apartment complex Sunday morning.  According to Bridgeport Assistant Fire Chief Michael Caldaroni, firefighters were dispatched to the Crescenet Crossings complex, 160 Church St., at 10:49 a.m. Sunday. Upon arriving, crews found that a kitchen fire had occurred in one of the apartments and was extinguished by the automatic sprinkler system.

“A salvage operation was conducted by fire crews to limit the amount of damage,” Caldaroni said in an email. “The electricity was disconnected to the apartments involved and this necessitated the relocation of seven adults and three children.”  The American Red Cross provided relocation services to those who needed relocation. The property management company called in maintenance employees and private contractors to make the necessary repairs. A fire investigator also responded to the scene to determine the cause of the fire. Nobody was injured.

According to a release from the Red Cross, the organization is also providing comfort kits containing personal care items such as toothbrushes, deodorant; shaving supplies and other items a resident might not have been able to gather in the rush to escape the fire. In addition, a recovery envelope containing information helpful to families recovering from a fire, including tips on cleanup; notification of important contacts; dealing with damaged items and more was provided.

Apartment Building, Residential

Vernon Hills, IL – Sprinkler system extinguishes fourth floor apartment fire

Nobody was injured in a Vernon Hills apartment fire Saturday afternoon, officials said.

Crews from the Countryside Fire Protection District were called to the apartment on the 1200 block of N. Museum Boulevard just before 3 p.m., according to a news release. When they arrived, residents were evacuating, and water was coming from a unit on the fourth floor, officials said. The fire already had been extinguished by the building’s sprinkler system.

Investigators determined that the fire was caused by hot cigarettes put in cardboard box inside a closet.

Apartment Building, Residential

Juneau, AK – Sprinkler system contains apartment fire started by unattended cooking

A kitchen fire sent smoke and residents streaming out of the Mendenhall Tower Apartments on Thursday morning, Capital City Fire/Rescue officials said on the scene.  At 10:57 a.m. Thursday, Fire Marshal Dan Jager said, a call came in reporting that a fire had broken out in an apartment on the third floor of the apartments and that smoke was visible from the outside of the building. Jager said it was apartment 301, on the north side of the building.

Firefighters arrived and extinguished the fire, Assistant Chief Tod Chambers said on the scene. Three people were being evaluated for possible smoke inhalation, Chambers said, and he did not have an update on their condition as of noon Thursday.  Jager said the fire appears to have begun on the kitchen stove, and that something had been left cooking on the stove. Both Jager and Chambers said it was unclear whether the resident of the apartment was home at the time.

“The fire was on the stovetop itself,” Jager said. “From there it went up to the cabinets and spread out through the kitchen area. The heat traveled across the ceiling over to the sprinkler head by the apartment door, and that’s actually what went off.”

Jager advised people to stay near their cooking food, whether it’s on the stove or in the microwave. Chambers said responders also went up to the 11th floor of the apartment building in response to an oven that had been left on.  The sprinkler kept the fire at bay until firefighters got there, Jager said, but there was still a little bit of fire in the apartment when they arrived because the sprinkler doesn’t reach all the way to the stove. Sprinklers all over the floor started spraying, Jager said, and he indicated that there was standing water on the floor just before residents were allowed back into the building at noon.

False alarms happen from time to time at the apartment complex, Jager said, so he was happy to see that most of the people who were home at their apartments Thursday took the alarm seriously and left the building.

“They followed the directions of the alarm,” Jager said, “and that made our job a whole lot easier so we can focus on the fire itself and not having to evacuate people or people getting hurt in the process.”

CCFR responders also responded to four medical calls during the response to the fire, according to a post on CCFR’s Facebook page. There were two calls downtown, one call in midtown and one in the Mendenhall Valley, according to the post.

Apartment Building, Residential, Residential High Rise

Massena, NY – Kitchen fire in high-rise apartment complex suppressed by sprinkler system

Building sprinkler system douses kitchen fire at Massena high-rise apartment complex.  The building’s sprinkler system was able to douse a kitchen fire late Saturday night on the eighth floor of the Laurel Terrace high-rise apartment complex.  Massena volunteer and permanent firefighters were called out to an alarm activation at 10:47 p.m. at Laurel Terrace. First Assistant Chief Paul Brownell said that when they arrived on the scene, they found smoke and water on the eighth floor.

“The sprinkler above the stove had gone off and extinguished it. We had a lot of water with that,” he said.  Firefighters spent the next few hours halting the water flow from the sprinkler system, evacuating residents from apartments that were damaged by water, checking on residents that had sheltered in place, securing the building’s utilities and assisting the Massena Rescue Squad with patient triage for smoke inhalation. The Massena Police Department was also on the scene.

“We were trying to get the residents to stay in place. A lot of them like to move around,” Mr. Brownell said.

He said they advised residents who remained in the building to stay in place and not move around so they could be contacted.

Firefighters initially used the building’s interior staircase to get up to the eighth floor and back to ground level again. They used a high-rise kit with hoses specifically designed for those types of emergencies.

“We try not to use the elevator,” Mr. Brownell said.

Once they determined there was no danger, the elevator was put back into service again to get residents back to their rooms.

Tenants were able to return to their apartments, and no temporary housing was required despite any water damage their apartment may have suffered.

“Nobody had a problem with that,” he said.

Apartment Building, Residential

Hagerstown, MD – Apartment kitchen fire extinguished by automatic sprinkler system

A sprinkler system extinguished a fire last Monday afternoon in the kitchen of an apartment on Little Elliott Drive, according to Hagerstown Fire Marshal Doug DeHaven.  DeHaven said an occupant in a third-floor apartment at 12817 Little Elliott Drive, off Leitersburg Pike, was attempting to cook food in oil, which overheated and caught fire.  The occupant put the burning pan in a sink and poured water on it, which caused the fire to flare, he said.  A sprinkler system extinguished the blaze by the time firefighters arrived.  Although six occupants in the apartment were able to remain in the unit, six occupants in lower apartments were displaced due to water damage to the electrical system, DeHaven said.  Firefighters were dispatched to the fire at 4:05 p.m.

Apartment Building, Residential

Birmingham, AL – Early morning fire at downtown loft apartment building extinguished by sprinkler system

Apartment Building, Nursing Home/Senior Living, Residential

Hagerstown, MD – Fire in apartment building for the elderly and disabled is extinguished with help from sprinkler system

Fire broke out in a fifth-floor apartment in Potomac Towers on West Baltimore Street Wednesday night, according to a Washington County 911 supervisor.  The fire was reported about 9:45 p.m., and was determined to be caused by food on a stove, the supervisor said.  The fire was extinguished, although firefighters were dealing with a lot of water in the building from a sprinkler system, the supervisor said.  Potomac Towers is a multi-story building that provides housing for elderly and disabled residents.

Apartment Building, Residential

Yakima, WA – Apartment fire caused by improperly disposed cigarette contained by sprinkler

Yakima firefighters say a fire sprinkler kept flames on a third-floor deck from spreading to the rest of an eastside apartment building. The fire at the East Beech Apartments, 1402 E. Beech St., was reported at 8:50 a.m. when smoke was seen coming from the third floor.  Someone on the deck placed a cigarette in a cardboard box believing it was out, said fire Capt. Jeff Pfaff. The burning cigarette caught the box on fire, which activated an automatic sprinkler system.  “The saving factor was the fire sprinkler,” Pfaff said.  Damage was estimated at $2,500, including a patio door that shattered when the sprinkler water hit the heated glass, Pfaff said.  Officials are calling the fire accidental.

Apartment Building, Residential

Prince George, VA – Early morning apartment fire caused by water heater is quickly put out by sprinkler system

A Prince George woman says an issue with her water heater forced her family to run from smoke and flames Wednesday morning.  Eleven people – six adults and five children – had to leave from their homes, but it’s thanks to the building’s fire suppression sprinkler system that the fire was quickly put out. All three floors of the apartment building suffered water damage, and no one was injured.

“I got my children up for school, and I saw nothing but smoke when they were taking a shower,” explained Tasha Powell. “I woke up and I smelled some burning, and I got up and got the kids out and there was a flame coming from up under the door.”

Powell says the fire started in her third floor apartment around 6:30 a.m. at Denmark Square at Puddledock Apartments. Firefighters said a water heater caught fire on the third floor. Powell says just a day before the fire, she had complained to maintenance about a burning smell coming from the water heater.

“Yesterday, I did complain to the office. I thought they had come and corrected the problem, because yesterday, they knocked my breaker off, and when I came back, the breaker was on,” said Powell. “I guess they hadn’t fixed the problem.”

Neighbors say they have been told it could be up to three days for those on the second floor to get back to their homes. Those who live on the third floor, with the most damage, have not been given a timeline. All three floors of the apartment building suffered water damage.

The leasing office of the Puddledock Apartments had no comment about the situation and could not give a timeline of when people can return home.

Fire crews are continuing to investigate what caused the water heater to ignite.