Tag Archives: New Hampshire

Child Care Facility

Lebanon, NH – Overnight fire at child care center extinguished by automatic sprinkler system

A kitchen fire that started on a stovetop at a Lebanon child care center late Wednesday night was quickly extinguished by a sprinkler system that city officials required to be installed throughout the building when it was constructed about a year and a half ago. Without sprinklers, the River Valley Club’s FitKids Childcare center likely would have suffered major damage, or been a total loss, according to Lebanon Fire Chief Chris Christopoulos. Instead, he said, the blaze only resulted in light, cosmetic damage and caused no injuries. An automatic fire alarm called firefighters to the Lafayette Street building in the Centerra office park shortly before 11 p.m. on Wednesday. By the time first responders were alerted, the fire already had been going for about a minute, Christopoulos said on Thursday. Heat from the blaze triggered sprinklers three minutes later, and firefighters arrived on-scene 12 minutes after the alarm struck, he said. “To put it to scale, a fire doubles in size every 60 to 75 seconds,” Christopoulos said in a phone interview. “So every minute that fire burns, it gets bigger.”

Rather than finding a fully engulfed building, he said, first responders instead encountered light smoke and a burned stove top extinguished by sprinklers. The building wasn’t occupied when the fire broke out. An investigation later determined that a maintenance worker had inadvertently turned the electric stove’s burners on while picking himself up from a fall, Christopoulos said. The stove then lit a camera bag left on top, he said.

The child care center was closed on Thursday, as teachers and River Valley Club employees emptied classrooms of furniture, carpets and toys. Some items were laid out in the parking lot to dry, while others were discarded due to smoke damage. “We’re obviously taking 100 percent care in how we’re handling this situation,” said River Valley Club CEO Jennifer Poljacik, who said FitKids would be open Friday.

Poljacik directed further questions to River Valley Club owner Joe Asch, who declined to comment.  Asch objected to the city’s mandate that he install sprinklers in the building after construction was first approved in July 2015. At the request of the Fire Department, the Lebanon Planning Board required that Asch install sprinklers because of the young age of children enrolled in the daycare program. Members of the Planning Board also worried about the length of time it would take for firefighters to respond to an emergency. The National Fire Protection Association recommends a four-minute response time, but Lebanon fire officials estimated it would take seven minutes to get to Lafayette Street from their downtown station.

Asch later appealed the Planning Board’s decision, arguing the sprinkler requirement was overly onerous and would cost an additional $75,000 in construction costs, but opted not to go to court when his appeal to the board failed. The overall budget for the building, designed for 188 children, was estimated at $2 million.

Each classroom in the 9,400-square-foot building would have two doors to the outside and adjacent rooms, he told the board. Asch also cited the International Building Code, which states a child care building is allowed to hold up to 100 children under the age of 2½ without requiring a sprinkler, as long as the children were on the ground floor and had doors to the outside. In a Feb. 2016 column in the Valley News, Asch said the building was designed with safety in mind and would use modern materials.

“It is almost impossible for them to catch fire,” he wrote of new buildings. “The national building codes about sprinklers reflect that.”

Ken Morley, a former Planning Board member, said he still stands by the decision to mandate sprinklers, adding they’re installed in many new, public buildings.

“Well, now, isn’t that interesting,” Morley said when informed of the fire on Thursday. “We felt at the time that because children were included and there were so many different alcoves and rooms in the structure, it would be more prudent for sprinklers to be installed.”

Christopoulos also said he’s happy to have recommended the sprinklers, adding they’ve been proven to save lives and property. If the sprinklers didn’t go off at the FitKids building, he said, a “fair portion” would have been destroyed before firefighters arrived.

“I think (the fire) certainly validated that property loss, in this instance, is economically minimal compared to what it could have been without sprinklers,” he said.

Apartment Building, Residential

Nashua, NH – Sprinkler system contains apartment grease fire on Easter Sunday

Crews were called to the Tara Heights Apartments at 10 Digital Dr. around 9 a.m. Sunday morning, where they found a grease fire on a stove that had spread to the cabinets and activated the sprinkler system.

The fire was quickly contained by the sprinkler system, but crews were still tied up for an hour ejecting smoke and doing salvage work in the apartment where the fire was and the apartment below it.

Nursing Home/Senior Living, Residential

Peterborough, NH – Single sprinkler extinguishes nursing home blaze; No injuries reported

The Peterborough Fire Department said a fire at a nursing home Saturday is a good example of the value of having a working sprinkler system in every building.  Firefighters said they were called to Pheasant Wood Center just before 1 p.m. because the fire alarm was sounding.  Officials said water was runnning out from unde the door to the maintenance room on the firsit floor and smoke could be smelled on the first and second floors. Officials said a single sprinkler head had activated and extinguished the fire.  The fire was caused when an electric fan caught fire and ignited other nearby combustibles.

Thanks to the sprinkler, the fire was contained and none of the residents or the operation of the nursing home were impacted by the fire.

Apartment Building, Residential

Dover, NH – Apartment kitchen fire extinguished by sprinkler system; No injuries reported

A fire at a Grove Street apartment Sunday was much different from one that occurred there nearly 16 years ago because of the sprinkler system that was installed, said the city’s fire chief.  At around 5:25 p.m. Sunday, the department was dispatched to the apartment building on 71 Grove St. And by the time the firefighters got the hose up to the second floor for the cooking fire, it was extinguished by the sprinkler system. The sprinkler system was added when the building was rehabilitated after the fire because of changes in the city’s fire code, Hagman said.

The fire on April 1, 2002, started in a second-floor apartment, like the one on Sunday. However, unlike Sunday’s fire, the 2002 one required rescuing two people from the apartment, said Chief Eric Hagman. Current Assistant Fire Chief Paul Haas was a firefighter then and a part of that rescue, he said.  The fire began in the kitchen where residents were getting ready to fry food when the oil got too hot and ignited, Hagman said. The fire spread to the kitchen cabinets but when the heat sensing sprinkler system activated, the fire was soon extinguished, Hagman said.

He said the residents, while they could have stayed at the apartment last night, went elsewhere for the night. The apartment below experienced some water damage. However, Hagman said that is much different than having to relocate all the residents in the building because of a fire, which occurred in the 2002 fire.

“That’s the benefit of having a code required sprinkler system,” he said. “There was no need for rescues and people got to stay in their apartments. It was a real good outcome.”

College/University (on campus), School / University

Durham, NH – Fire in lab building at University of New Hampshire extinguished by sprinkler system

A small fire occurred on Tuesday at the University of New Hampshire’s Rudman Hall.  According to Dave Emanuel, the assistant fire chief in Durham, the fire occurred in a cleaning room on the third floor.  The call came in at approximately 9 a.m. for fire alarm activation with the alarm panel indicating water flowing in the building.

“The building is predominantly a lab building and on each floor there is a cleaning room with a glass cleaner and an oven for drying,” Emanuel said. “This was an insulation fire in the area of the glass cleaner. The captain had taken the room apart and determined the fire was out. It was declared under control at 9:50 a.m.”

The sprinkler system extinguished the fire and because the room has a poly-coated floor for the most part the water was contained to the room. But according to Emanuel, the drain isn’t big enough to handle the flow from the sprinkler so some water did run out into the staircase and there were a few other penetrations between the different floors.

“The most important thing is that everything worked as it should have,” Emanuel said. “UNH invests in fire alarms systems for early notification and suppression — and the system did its job,”  “We used squeegees to move the water toward the stairwells and vacuum it up,” Emanuel said. “We do the best we can for loss prevention.”

Due to scope of the cleanup, Durham Fire Department was assisted on scene by Lee, Newmarket, and University Police personnel.  Listen: Latest From the Newsroom. Emanuel said they returned Rudman Hall to normal operations at about 10 a.m. and crews cleared the scene at about 11 a.m. A second call for fire alarm activation and a medical call at about the same time, made for a very busy morning. “We were running in three directions at once,” Emanuel said.

Hotel / Restaurant, Restaurant

Dover, NH – Restaurant fire held down by sprinkler system; Eatery reopens following day

A minor fire at Tucker’s Restaurant in Dover on Sunday night has forced the establishment to close on Monday.  According to Dover Fire Chief Eric Hagman, dispatchers received a fire alarm from the location at 11:33 p.m. followed by a caller from the nearby Applebee’s restaurant who reported heavy smoke in the rear of the building.

Firefighters and paramedics arrived by 11:37 p.m. and found a fire under a canopy outside at the back of the restaurant where it receives deliveries, Hagman said. The building’s sprinkler system also covers that area of the building, which the chief said held down the fire until firefighters arrived and extinguished the fire within about 10 minutes.  “Without the sprinkler system it would have been a much bigger event,” Hagman said.  Some of the food inside the kitchen was exposed to smoke and had to be discarded, he said.

The popular breakfast and lunch eatery, which operates four locations in New Hampshire, opened in early June in the former Uno Pizzeria and Grill. Tucker’s is located near the New Rochester Road intersection with Indian Brook Road.

Government/Military, Prison / Jail

Laconia, NH – Sprinkler system helps to limit fire at county jail; Overheated generator was cause

A fire that broke out at the newly completed Belknap County Community Corrections Center last week may have caused as much as $100,000 in damaging, authorities report.  Assistant Fire Chief Kirk Beattie said an exhaust pipe from an emergency generator overheated during a load test, setting the surrounding plywood on fire. Workmen who had been performing diagnostic testing on the generator had been operating it at capacity over time when the fire started late Thursday morning.  Workers quickly called the fire department and deployed multiple fire extinguishers to help to slow the blaze that quickly extended from the generator room next to the sally port into the attic above, charring one bay of rafters.

Beattie credited the quick call for help coupled with the use of fire extinguishers and the building’s sprinkler system with collectively working to limit the spread of the fire and amount of damage.

“It was the proper pipe from the generator, but it looks like the whole generator overheated,” Beattie said.

Firefighters were already en route when the fire alarm was tripped and found a fire hydrant within 10 feet of where the first truck parked.

No inmates were in the section of the building where the fire occurred and neither the jail or the adjacent nursing home were impacted by the incident, according to Beattie. No injuries were reported.

Firefighters remained on scene for about three hours and had to cut away a section of the roof as well as an outside wall to assure it was completely extinguished. Initially estimates of damage were between $30,000 to $50,000 but Beattie said as a result of the sprinkler activation the generator was completely soaked and may likely end up having to be scrapped.

Hotel / Restaurant, Restaurant

Conway, NH – Sprinkler system helps douse broiler fire at Burger King

“Flame broiled” was taken to a whole new level on Friday afternoon after a kitchen fire at the Burger King on 1385 White Mountain Highway in North Conway forced the restaurant to be evacuated. The popular fast-food restaurant is expected to be closed for a few days.

“The fire occurred in the exhaust hood for the broilers that cook the hamburgers,” North Conway Fire Chief Pat Preece said, and when firefighters arrived on the scene, they were greeted by thick black clouds of smoke coming from the roof along with flames in the kitchen. Crews were able to use a hand line (hose) to extinguish the blaze.

Preece said the department was toned out at approximately 1:50 p.m. It was a First Alarm fire, which saw North Conway, Conway and Redstone fire departments respond to the scene while the Bartlett Fire Department covered the North Conway station.

“The crews did a real nice job of knocking it down pretty quickly,” Preece said, and added that a sprinkler head near the broiler went off, which also helped douse the fire.

Preece said the fire initially spread from the broiler into the ceiling and onto the roof near the exhaust pipe. The rubber membrane around the pipe also caught fire.

“The Burger King staff did a nice job of not waiting and calling 911 relatively quickly,” Preece said. “The initial call was that there was smoke in the ductwork. They evacuated the building; it was full of thick smoke.”

Preece said based on a preliminary observation, Burger King will be closed “for a couple of days,” in order to clean up and do repairs.

“There is some electrical wiring that needs to be done, and the hood system (for the broiler) needs to be redone,” he said. “It was a good job by everyone from the Burger King staff to the firefighters and Conway police, which handled traffic in a busy, busy parking lot.

You’ve got Burger King and CVS there along with people trying to cut through the lot to get to Eastman Road.”

Government/Military, Other-Government/Military

Laconia, NH – Fire in circuit courthouse contained with help from sprinkler system

A fire in a trash can caused the evacuation of the Laconia Circuit Court Monday afternoon.  Meredith’s Vikki Fogg said she opened the door to a ground floor restroom to be met by flames. She told her grandson Nathan, 7, to go tell the bailiff conducting security screenings at the courthouse entrance that there was a fire.

“It was really going,” said bailiff Bill Barnard who grabbed a five-pound dry chemical extinguisher and doused the fire.  Court was in session at the time the fire broke out and security personnel had smelled smoke and were searching all three floors of the building for the source when Fogg opened the door to the first-floor restroom at the end of the hallway between the offices for the probate and family court and the circuit court.

The fire triggered the building’s smoke alarms but not the sprinkler system. Laconia Fire Chief Ken Erickson said his department responded to the fire alarm activation and were advised en route to 26 Academy St. there was smoke in the building, and that security personnel were looking for the source.

“Any time you have a report of a fire in a courthouse it’s of concern. It’s a government building and you have to think whether something else might be going on. Someone trying to create a diversion to get someone out or a disgruntled person trying to lash out,” Erickson said.

Courthouse staff directed people to leave the building after smelling smoke and then joined them gathering in the rear parking lot as firefighters arrived. Fans were set up to help clear the air. Damage was limited to the ruined trash can and to the mess made by the dry powder from the chemical extinguisher.

Security cameras are mounted throughout the building and bailiffs were confident that recorded video images coupled with observations made by people in the courthouse would lead to the source of the fire.

 

Nursing Home/Senior Living, Residential

Nashua, NH – Middle of night nursing home fire contained by sprinkler system

A fire at the Courville Nursing Home early Sunday sent one person to the hospital and forced more than 50 patients to be relocated to another facility, authorities said. One person was taken to Southern New Hampshire Medical Center for evaluation and possible smoke inhalation, according to the fire department. Fire crews responded to 22 Hunt St. just before 2 a.m. and found a fire in one of the patient rooms on the second floor. Staff already had removed two patients from that room. The fire was contained by the activated sprinkler heads. Fire crews put out the remaining fire.

Second-floor patients were removed from the fire area and sheltered in a safe location until areas could be ventilated and water removal efforts completed, according to the fire department.  “Due to smoke and water damage to several wings of the facility, a coordinated effort of Nashua Fire Rescue, Courville Nursing Home and various ambulance providers, 50-plus patients were relocated to Greenbrier Nursing Home until repairs and cleanup in areas of the facility can be completed,” the fire department said.

The cause remains under investigation. “Sprinklers in this case quickly contained the fire until the arrival of the fire department,” authorities said.