A business’s sprinkler system did exactly what it was designed to do when it contained a small fire in the 18600 block of 72 Avenue South on Tuesday, the Kent Regional Fire Authority reported.
No one was in the business at the time of the fire, though firefighters checked neighboring businesses as a precaution.
The system, which also sent a signal of a possible fire to the alarm company that monitored it, activated at 5:30 a.m. The closest emergency unit to the call was a fire engine from Tukwila. When they arrived, they found water coming from inside the large two-story, concrete tilt-up building. Because they knew that a sprinkler head had activated, they upgraded the incident to a “commercial fire,” which brought a full fire response.
Once additional firefighters from the Kent RFA and Renton RFA were able to get inside the building they found it filled with smoke, which made locating the fire more difficult. Once they found the seat of the fire, they were able to extinguish it quickly and shut down the sprinkler system to reduce additional water damage.
A fire investigator determined that there were two locations at the business where fire started. One was inside, which activated the sprinkler system, and one was on an exterior loading dock.
The cause of the fire was spontaneous combustion, after paper and filtering material, which were both saturated with paint, were placed in containers, fire officials said. Certain materials, when in a limited space, can self-generate heat until they catch fire. Paints, oils and compost are common causes of this type of combustion.
The fire is considered accidental.
No one was inside an Ashwaubenon fiberglass maker when fire broke out early Tuesday morning, according to Ashwaubenon Public Safety.
Firefighters say it appears a some machinery–possibly an air compressor–caught fire in the back of the building, located in the 2900 hundred block of Holmgren Way.
A sprinkler system alerted crews to the fire and prevented the blaze from spreading to the fiberglass material inside the warehouse.
“Actually the contents inside, we had no extension inside to the contents,” said Chief Eric Dunning, Ashwaubenon Public Safety. “If that would’ve caught, we’d still be fighting it right now. The fire stayed with the machinery itself, but with the contents inside there, this could’ve been far worse.”
The building did sustain smoke damage. Crews were entering the business to investigate what caused the equipment to spark a fire.
“Right now, I’m not sure what the estimate cost of the machinery is,” Chief Dunning said. “And then obviously with the heavy smoke, and there’s quite a few of what appears to be fiberglass halls in there, if there were smoke damage to the halls that were inside the facility.”
The chief stressed the importance of having a sprinkler system.
“We’ll take that in the luck category. We’ll take that as a win for us,” Chief Dunning said. “What also helped is we had an active sprinkler system, so the sprinkler system kept things to a minimum, where if the building wasn’t sprinklered it would’ve for sure spread into other contents and we wouldn’t have been alerted until it was coming through the building.”
Holmgren Way and Ramada Way were closed for a brief time near the scene of a fire. The roads reopened after 5 a.m.
The Titusville Fire Department was busy on Friday putting out two fires — one occurred at a Titusville business — the other was on Park Avenue near the intersection of High Street. According to Assistant Chief Joe Lamey, the first fire happened at 5:30 a.m., Friday, at ITU [formerly Farley’s Industrial Laundry] on West Spring Street.
Lamey said an automatic fire alarm went off, and when firefighters arrived on the scene, the water flow alarm [sprinkler system] was on, but no smoke was showing. He said firefighters forced entry into the structure and the building’s interior was full of smoke.
Lamey said Hydetown and Pleasantville volunteers were called to assist. He said one of the overhead bags the laundry uses had a contaminant, possibly an oil substance, that spontaneously combusted.
“The sprinkler system did a great job, but there’s water damage,” Lamey said. “They will have a lot of clean up. There was little damage to the facility and it will probably be ruled accidental.” He said firefighters were on the scene until 8 a.m.
Reporting on lives and property saved by fire sprinklers
