Building sprinkler system douses kitchen fire at Massena high-rise apartment complex.  The building’s sprinkler system was able to douse a kitchen fire late Saturday night on the eighth floor of the Laurel Terrace high-rise apartment complex.  Massena volunteer and permanent firefighters were called out to an alarm activation at 10:47 p.m. at Laurel Terrace. First Assistant Chief Paul Brownell said that when they arrived on the scene, they found smoke and water on the eighth floor.

“The sprinkler above the stove had gone off and extinguished it. We had a lot of water with that,” he said.  Firefighters spent the next few hours halting the water flow from the sprinkler system, evacuating residents from apartments that were damaged by water, checking on residents that had sheltered in place, securing the building’s utilities and assisting the Massena Rescue Squad with patient triage for smoke inhalation. The Massena Police Department was also on the scene.

“We were trying to get the residents to stay in place. A lot of them like to move around,” Mr. Brownell said.

He said they advised residents who remained in the building to stay in place and not move around so they could be contacted.

Firefighters initially used the building’s interior staircase to get up to the eighth floor and back to ground level again. They used a high-rise kit with hoses specifically designed for those types of emergencies.

“We try not to use the elevator,” Mr. Brownell said.

Once they determined there was no danger, the elevator was put back into service again to get residents back to their rooms.

Tenants were able to return to their apartments, and no temporary housing was required despite any water damage their apartment may have suffered.

“Nobody had a problem with that,” he said.