Hotel / Restaurant, Restaurant Harrisburg, PA – Overnight fire at popular downtown restaurant extinguished by single sprinkler February 13, 2017 viking210 A single sprinkler saved a Harrisburg restaurant from a catastrophic fire early Friday, city Fire Chief Brian Enterline said. The fire call came in just before 2 a.m. from the Capitol Gastropub in the 300 block of North Second Street. Only light smoke was in the building when firefighters arrived. Enterline said they found “a small fire in the basement that had been controlled and extinguished by a single fire sprinkler head.” The fire started in a plastic laundry tub filled with cleaning rags, he said. The tub was ruined and there was minor water damage, but that was it, the chief said. The damage totaled about $2,500. The restaurant was able to open without a hitch. “If this business did not have an operating sprinkler system to control the fire, the loss to not only the building but the lost revenue for the restaurant could have easily been in excess of $1 million,” Enterline said. “Fire sprinklers are a proven life safety and property loss reduction system that often comes under fire by the building industry as being overpriced and unnecessary.” The cause of the fire remains under investigation, he said.
