Apartment Building, Residential Conroe, TX – Early morning fire at mid-rise apartment building held in check by sprinkler system July 18, 2017 viking210 Conroe Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Mike Legoudes Jr. credits fire sprinklers for saving The Towers Woodland Apartments and it occupants from a potential disaster early Saturday morning in Conroe. The Conroe Fire Department was notified at 5:26 a.m. of an apartment fire at 366 FM 1488. Firefighters arrived at 5:32 a.m. and reported heavy white smoke coming from the parking garage below Building 12. “The cause of the smoke was found to be a single vehicle on fire,” information from Legoudes stated. “An aggressive offensive attack was initiated and the fire was quickly extinguished.” The fire was declared under control at 5:35 a.m. All occupants of the building were able to escape and were accounted for with no reported injuries to occupants or firefighters. Needham Road Fire/Rescue and The Woodlands Fire Department assisted. The involved building consists of a ground-level parking garage with four stories of apartments above, for a total of five stories. The garage area and apartments are fully protected by fire sprinkler and automatic fire alarm systems. “A single fire sprinkler head activated keeping the fire under control until arrival of firefighters while the automatic fire alarm system alerted occupants of the fire, allowing them to escape unharmed,” the release stated. “The potential for disaster in a residential building of this size, at the time of day the fire occurred, is great.” Legoudes stressed in the release that the importance of properly installed and maintained fire sprinkler and automatic fire alarm systems cannot be overstated. As a result of the fire sprinkler activation, there was no visible damage to the building and no occupants were displaced, he said. “A properly installed and maintained fire sprinkler system is the single-most effective way of preventing loss of property or life in the event of a residential fire,” he stated. “In this instance, property was definitely saved while lives were very likely saved.”
