Tag Archives: Afternoon (12pm-6pm)

Apartment Building, Residential

Chester, VA – Sprinkler system keeps apartment fire from spreading; Fire caused by clothes dryer motor malfunction

A fire Wednesday evening at an apartment complex in the Enon area of Chesterfield County has displaced three residents. The Chesterfield County Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services responded at 5:37 p.m. to the 2300 block of Golden Garden Circle for a dryer on fire inside of an apartment, according to officials. 

Fire crews arrived to find a small amount of fire inside of the dryer. The fire sprinkler system had activated and extinguished the bulk of the fire, stopping it from spreading throughout the apartment. It took crews approximately 20 minutes to get the fire under control, according to a release. 

The fire started as a result of the dryer motor malfunctioning during operation. Two adults and one child were displaced and are being assisted by apartment management.

Other / Not Specified, Other Business

Cumberland, RI – Sprinkler system extinguishes fire at business caused by charged batteries

Charged batteries shipped to a company that refurbishes electronic equipment “heated up to ignition temperature” and started a fire in the Cadillac Mills complex Thursday, Cumberland Fire Chief Kenneth A. Finlay said.  The fire, at Aztek Technologies, 30 Meeting St., Cumberland, was extinguished by the building’s sprinkler system before firefighters arrived, Finlay said.

Firefighters were called to the mill, which has entrances on Meeting Street and Titus Street, at 5:16 p.m. Thursday. They found only smoke, water and a 24- by 36- by 18-inch cardboard box of batteries where the fire apparently started.  Some of the company’s product near the box of batteries had been damaged, he said.

Usually the company receives shipments of batteries that haven’t been charged, but the box contained live batteries, which Finlay attributed to a packing error. Employees of the many businesses in the mill complex evacuated when the alarm sounded, including 10 from Texcel Industries, which makes military and camouflage webbing.  No one was injured.

The building sustains some water damage because firefighters had trouble turning off the sprinkler system, Finlay said.

Firefighters from the Saylesville fire company in Lincoln assisted with a ladder truck.

 

Residential, Single Family Home

Chapel Hill, NC – Home cooking-related fire put out by sprinkler system

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A sprinkler system extinguished a cooking-related fire Tuesday at a home in the Southern Village Neighborhood in Chapel Hill. Just before 1 p.m., Chapel Hill fire received a call from an alarm monitoring company reporting a fire at 500 Market Street.

Six trucks responded to the call as a sprinkler system was able to put the fire out. Responding fire fighters worked to ensure the fire was out. Chapel Hill fire officials said the cause of the fire was cooking related. No one was injured in the incident.

Apartment Building, Residential

Rockford, IL – Apartment kitchen fire contained by sprinkler system; No injuries

A grease fire before 4:30 p.m. Saturday broke out at the Zion Development apartment complex, 1055 E. State St., a Rockford Fire Department incident report said.

Rockford Fire Department firefighters found fire in the kitchen of a fifth-floor apartment contained by the building sprinkler system. Occupants of damaged apartments were relocated to other areas of the apartment building.

Rockford fire investigators listed the fire as accidental. No injuries were reported. Twenty-one firefighters participated in the fire response and cleanup activities.

Hotel / Motel, Hotel / Restaurant

Beaufort, SC – Fire at Hilton Garden Inn extinguished by sprinkler system

A fire at Hilton Garden Inn on Thursday was extinguished by the hotel’s sprinkler system by the time firefighters arrived, according to a news release. Firefighters responded to the fire about 4:30 p.m. and found all of the hotel’s tenants evacuated to the parking lot. A room on the third floor caught fire before the sprinklers doused the flames.

All 115 hotel rooms were occupied at the time of the fire, the release said, The full house was related to Friday’s graduation ceremony at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island. “The hotel was filled with Marine recruit families and friends, and they all got out fine,” Beaufort-Port Royal Fire Chief Sammy Negron said in the release. “It was a good ending to a potentially very bad situation.”

Tenants in 47 rooms had to be relocated until the rooms affected by the sprinkler system could be cleared for use, Negron said.

Apartment Building, Residential

Fairbanks, AK – Sprinkler system contains cooking fire at downtown apartment building

A sprinkler system contained a small cooking fire in a downtown Fairbanks apartment building Tuesday evening.

The fire broke out about 5:30 p.m. in an apartment on the third floor of the Golden Towers building, said Assistant Fire Chief Ernie Misewicz with the Fairbanks fire department. The automatic sprinkler extinguished the fire. 

“Nobody was displaced and damage was kept to a minimum,” he said.

Other Business, Recycling / Waste Facility

Orleans, MA – Sprinklers assist firefighters in controlling challenging recycling plant fire

Firefighters from the Lower Cape and Mid-Cape areas were tied up for hours after a pile of mattresses caught fire inside a recycling plant Saturday.

Around 1 p.m., rescuers responded to the Daniels Recycling Center building on Giddiah Hill Road after employees at the plant unsuccessfully tried to squelch the nearly ceiling-high pile of mattresses set to be recycled, Orleans Fire Chief Anthony Pike said.

The cause of the two-alarm fire was unknown, Pike added.  Firefighters equipped with breathing apparatus entered the warehouse and mostly knocked down the fire, which didn’t appear to damage the building, Pike said.

But because the mattresses and other debris were so compact, workers from the plant took front-end loaders and pulled pile after pile of the debris out of the building to the edge of the plant’s parking lot to be hosed down, Orleans Deputy Chief Geof Deering said.

The Red Cross was on scene with drinks and snacks for the rescuers, and one firefighter was being evaluated for exhaustion, Dennis Deputy Chief Robert Brown said.

The sprinkler system in the warehouse worked to help keep the fire from spreading, Pike said. Fire crews from Dennis, Eastham, Brewster, and Harwich aided Orleans at the scene. Crews from as far as Yarmouth were called in to cover the responding departments’ empty fire stations.

 

Hotel / Motel, Hotel / Restaurant

Duluth, GA – Cooking fire at Extended Stay America hotel extinguished by sprinkler system

A Gwinnett County Fire and Emergency Services spokesman said firefighters were called to the Extended Stay America at 3390 Venture Parkway at 3:38 p.m. to respond to a fire on the third floor, only to find a second fire had also broken out on the hotel’s sixth floor.

“Crews made their way up to the third floor to find that a fire had occurred inside the room and that an occupant had extinguished the fire prior to (the fire department’s) arrival,” Lt. Jerrod Barrett said. “During the firefighter’s investigation, one of the occupants of the sixth floor told (the fire department) that she may have left food on the stove inside their room.

“Crews made their way up to the sixth floor room and found a small fire that had been extinguished by the sprinkler system,” he added. Barrett said the fires did not spread to any walls or the ceilings of the rooms where they occurred. Damage in the building was mostly caused by water emitted by the hotel’s sprinkler system, he added. Investigators have not determined a cause for the fire and it remains under investigation, the spokesman said.

People who were staying on the first through fourth floors were allowed to return to their rooms, except for the occupants of one room that was damaged. Barrett said people who stayed on the fifth and sixth floors will be displaced because of the damage, however.

Apartment Building, Residential

Temecula, CA – Sprinkler system contains apartment fire to single room; No injuries to woman and infant occupant

The fire was reported at 5:35 p.m. Saturday in the 31200 block of Black Maple Drive in Temecula, said the department’s Jennifer Fuhrman.

The first arriving firefighters reported smoke showing from the second floor of a two-story apartment building.  A woman and an infant boy were displaced, Fuhrman said. The building’s sprinkler system contained the fire to a single room of one apartment at 5:51 p.m.

Firefighters remained on scene for an “extensive water salvage,” Fuhrman said, as two of the apartments sustained water damage due to the sprinkler activation.

Apartment Building, Residential

Fairfield, CT – Sprinkler system credited with keeping apartment fire in check

On Sunday, Aug. 23, at 2:48 p.m. the Fairfield Emergency Communication Center received a report of a fire alarm at 130 Fairchild Avenue. Engine 2, Engine 3, Ladder 2 and Car 3 were dispatched. While responding, FD units were advised that there was a fire in one of the kitchens. Fairfield Engine 2 arrived first and reported heavy smoke on the second floor of the 54 unit apartment building and a smoke condition on the third floor.

Engine 1, Engine 4, Engine 5, and Ladder 1 we additionally requested to the scene to support the fire ground effort. Assistant Chief Schuyler Sherwood arrived Car 3 and took command. Upon gaining access to the apartment, Engine 2 determined the fire had been controlled by the building sprinkler system. On scene fire units began an extensive search and ventilation operation. High levels of carbon monoxide were found on multiple floors of the building.

The occupants of the fire apartment were evaluated for smoke inhalation by AMR. The building was ventilated and all 54 units searched. Assistant Chief Schuyler Sherwood stated, “The occupants of the building were extremely lucky that this building had a sprinkler system and that the sprinkler system kept the fire in check. The damage would have been much worse had there not had been a working sprinkler system.” Assistant Chief Sherwood went on to say that “He would like to remind people of the importance of evacuating a building when the fire alarm system sounds as occupants were found in the building after the fire who did not evacuate and in fact there were high levels of carbon monoxide in the area of their apartments”.

Fire Units remained on scene for about two hours. Two apartments in the building were damaged and will not be able to be occupied.