Thirty apartments were evacuated Sunday morning after a small fire broke out in a third-floor unit at 195 Eastern Avenue. Manchester firefighters received an automatic fire alarm at 10:58 a.m. Sunday at Hillview Apartments at 195 Eastern Ave. District Fire Chief Mike Gamache said upon arrival crews discovered water and smoke in a third floor apartment. Firefighters located a small fire, partially extinguished by the building’s sprinkler system.
Gamache said firefighters extinguished the remainder of the fire, then assisted residents in apartments on the first and second floors, where water from the sprinkler system drained onto their possessions. Gamache said extensive salvage operations were performed to save the residents’ belongings.
No injuries were reported. Gamache said fire and water from the sprinkler system caused an estimated $10,000 in damages. The property, which consists of four buildings, is owned by Eastern Avenue Associates LLC, with an assessed value of $8,643,200, according to the city’s website.
The initial call for smoke in a second floor suite came in at 7:28 a.m., Rollinsford Fire Chief Mark Rutherford said. Fire crews arrived to find heavy smoke coming from a woodworking shop in Suite 208 of the 160-year-old mill building, and about 15 people had to be evacuated. No one was injured.
Rutherford credited an updated sprinkler system from preventing the two-alarm blaze from spreading. Firefighters also were able to respond quickly to knock down the flames.
Smoke damage was limited to the room of origin and the hallway, and both the studio and the studio below it on the second floor sustained water damaged.
“You need a system like this in these old buildings to keep fires from spreading,” Rutherford said. “How this system was designed probably saved this building, because once a fire spreads in a building like this, you’re here for a while.” Grenier said he was led to believe the fire started as a result of an oily rag being left out overnight. He wants those responsible for leaving the rag out will be held responsible.
“The biggest thing right now is, I need someone from an insurance company to come in and tell me everything’s going to be OK and give me money,” Grenier said with a chuckle.
Responders included fire departments from Rollinsford, South Berwick, Maine, Berwick, Maine, Somersworth and Dover and York Ambulance Association. Fire departments from Rochester and Eliot, Maine, provided station coverage.
Kent Scovill, who operates PKS Woodworks, said his business was not damaged.
“It was scary coming in this morning and seeing all the fire trucks,” Scovill said. “I was pretty shocked. I ran downstairs and I ran in through the back, which I probably shouldn’t have done. I made sure everything was all right.”
Painter Shaune McCarthy of Madbury, who has a studio at the mill, said she heard about the fire early Friday morning after getting a call from a friend.
McCarthy said she was glad the damage was not more extensive.
“She said, ‘Guess what, the mill’s on fire.’ I was scared to death,” McCarthy said. “There’s always been big mill fires you hear about in history. It’s scary but I’m glad it was just a small thing.”
Gregory McCrone of Dover, an “eclectic collector” of art, coins and family heirlooms, rents a work space at the mill, which he calls “part museum and part living room.”
After his morning swim, McCrone drove to the mill to find half a dozen fire trucks in the parking lot.
“I didn’t see the building going up (in flames) so I wasn’t quite as worried,” he said. “They wouldn’t let anyone in at first. I have a lot of stuff up here.”
A radio likely sparked an early morning fire at an auto body shop that would have caused about $100,000 in damage, if not for a working sprinkler system, said Fire Chief Steve Achilles. Firefighters responded to the Portsmouth Autobody Center at 4:36 a.m. Wednesday when an alarm sounded from the 700 Peverly Hill Road business, said the fire chief. When they arrived, it took firefighters about 15 minutes to locate the fire because it was in back of the main building, inside a separate 200-foot by 120-foot metal building, Achilles said.
Firefighters had to force their way into the locked and smoke-filled building and one firefighter injured his hand while making entry, according to Achilles. He was treated at Portsmouth Regional Hospital and released, the chief said. Once inside, firefighters “used a line to knock down the remaining fire,” said Achilles. An investigation concluded with a theory that a radio, or a wire to a radio, started the fire inside a storage cabinet, Achilles said. No vehicles or people were in the building at the time, he said.
Reporting on lives and property saved by fire sprinklers
