Tag Archives: New York

Athletic Club/Sports Facility, Other Business

Elmont, NY – Barn fire at Belmont Park race track extinguished by sprinkler system; No horses or people injured

As reported on ESPN.com,  there were no injuries to horses or humans reported as a result of a small fire in a tack room in Barn 61 at Belmont Park on Thursday night. Michelle Nevin has most of the horses stabled in that barn. According to Glen Kozak, the New York Racing Association’s vice president of facilities/racing surfaces, some equipment was placed too close to an electric heater in a tack room, sparking the fire. The sprinkler system in the barn went off and doused the fire before the Elmont Fire Department arrived.  “No horses were moved, no horses were hurt,” Kozak said. “We were lucky, it was a very minor event with minimal damage.” Kozak estimated the damage to be $2,500 and mostly to a wall in the tack room.

Retail, Shopping Mall

Oneonta, NY – Fire at Southside Mall contained by sprinkler system; No injuries reported

A sprinkler system contained a fire in a service room at Southside Mall early Wednesday morning, officials said. The flames were extinguished and the mall was open as usual.

Crews went to the rear side of the main mall building at about 4 a.m. after responding to multiple alarms at the property reported by an alarm company through Otsego County 911, Oneonta Fire Department officials said, and crews were at the mall minutes later.

Oneonta crews put out flames in a small area of a service room in the main building at the mall on state Route 23 in the town of Oneonta, said Fire Chief Patrick Pidgeon.

Pidgeon said no one was hurt and the cause of the fire was under investigation.

Upon responding, crews checked buildings on the mall property and found water coming out of a doorway in the back of the main mall structure, Pidgeon said. Three sprinkler heads in the service room had provided sufficient water to suppress the blaze so that crews were able to enter the building and service room, he said, and crews used a fire extinguisher with water to put out flames that were showing.

Southside Mall was open as usual, according to Luisa Montanti, general manager at the mall. The fire was in a stock room, sprinkler heads were replaced and the electrical panels were being checked, she said.

“It was a small incident,” Montanti said. She expressed gratitude that the sprinkler system worked and for the quick response of the Oneonta Fire Department.

Oneonta crews were back in service after the fire at about 6:15 a.m., officials said.

Hospital/Care Facility, Hospital/Medical Clinic

Rochester, NY – Electrical panel fire at hospital contained with help from sprinkler system

Firefighters say a major short in a power box is responsible for sparking a fire at Monroe Community Hospital early New Year’s Day.  Firefighters say an electric panel on the fourth floor caught fire around 2:30 a.m.   Crews got in quickly extinguished the fire.  The sprinkler system caused some water damage, but contained the fire was contained to the utility room.  Firefighters say no one occupies the section of the building where the fire started, however there was a power outage to part of the building.

Apartment Building, Residential

Binghamton, NY – Apartment fire contained to one unit with help from sprinkler system

Firefighters spent the evening on the scene of an apartment fire at 58 Park Avenue in Binghamton.

According to the Binghamton Fire Department, apartment 1A caught fire.

BFD officials say the fire damage was contained to apartment 1A, which they say now needs extensive renovations.

BFD says the fire sprinkler in the apartment hallway was activated, but the fire was contained to apartment 1A. Smoke, however, moved up the stairwell to both the second and third floors.

A woman and child were pulled out of an apartment window on the third floor because smoke moved to the third floor, trapping the mother and her son in apartment 3A behind a cloud of thick smoke.

“What I heard was the guy on the first floor, he was leaving the building and the fire was going on in his apartment,” said apartment 3A resident and mother Lydia Lopez.

With the tenant from 1-A already out of the building, it was up to Lopez’s downstairs neighbor on the second floor to alert other residents to the fire on the first floor.

“She said ‘tell everybody get out!’ and he just got out, he didn’t tell nobody get out. So by the time I could get out, the house in 3-A was already flooded in smoke and I couldn’t get out with my son. They had to take me out the window from the back,” Lopez continued.

“The tower took a ladder around to the backside of the building, put it up to the third floor, and rescued the mother and her baby from the third floor,” said BFD Assistant Fire Chief Mark Whalen.

The thick smoke made it almost impossible to see the walls of apartment 3-A and Lopez didn’t want to take her son through the smoke.

Chief Whalen says firefighters arrived 2 minutes after the 9-1-1 call, and had her out of the apartment moments after arriving.

She tells 12 News that after being surprised by smoke billowing into their apartment, she’s lucky to be alive.

“I’m happy they got here on time, cuz other times some people are not lucky to get out alive, so we got out safe and sound, thanks to the fire department,” Lopez said.

Asst. Chief Whalen says the apartment complex was turned back over to the owner and the owner will decide whether or not tenants will be allowed back in before repairs are made.

The exact cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Other - Manufacturing, Paper Mill / Saw Mill

Queensbury, NY – Fire at wood shaving plant contained with help from sprinkler system

A wood-shavings plant caught fire Tuesday morning, two months after federal workplace safety officials cited the company for failing to correct “potential fire and explosion hazards.”

Fire crews from four towns responded to reports of a structure fire about 7:15 a.m. at RWS Manufacturing, 22 Ferguson Lane. The blaze extended from an outside conveyor that moved wood shavings to an inside storage facility, Kingsbury Fire Chief Butch Chase said. “Something may have malfunctioned,” he said.

Investigators do not consider the fire suspicious and no one was injured, Chase said. The fire was extinguished by 8 a.m.  “It’s the nature of their business,” Chase said.

RWS — which makes animal bedding from wood shavings for Quebec-based Royal Wood Shavings — said in July it would shut down if it is not successful in appealing $197,820 in fines from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA claims the plant is exposing its employees to “potential fire and explosion hazards.”

The equipment cited by OSHA was not involved in the blaze, Chase said. A county fire inspection of the plant last month did not identify any problems, he said.

“They are on good order with us,” Chase said. He said he has toured the facility in the past and responded to three other fires on the property in the past six years.

The wood shavings produced there smoke and smolder a lot, Chase said, “but seldom burst into flames.” The building itself was aflame Tuesday, he said.

RWS was operating when the fire started. Staff had safely evacuated the building and started to suppress the fire with hose lines when firefighters arrived, Chase said. The buildings’ sprinkler system stayed on as the fire crews extinguished the blaze.

“They have an extensive clean-up,” Chase said. RWS will undergo a town code inspection and fire chief walkthrough before opening again, he said.

In July, OSHA cited RWS for half a dozen violations totaling about $50,000 and levied an additional $147,000 in penalties after the company failed to fix previously identified violations.

The Queensbury plant, which operates in the Warren-Washington County Industrial Park, was cited for 28 violations in 2013 and fined more than $233,000 for workplace safety violations related to fire, fall and explosion risk. Two of those violations were deemed as “willful,” meaning the company ignored federal safety rules.

“RWS Manufacturing has disregarded its employees’ safety in failing to correct an obvious fire and explosion hazard and in allowing the existence of new and recurring hazards,” said Robert Garvey, OSHA’s area director in Albany in a July press release. “Especially disturbing is the fact that, since OSHA’s last inspection, a significant fire occurred in the plant’s production area in December 2015.”

 

Apartment Building, Residential

Rome, NY – No injuries in overnight apartment fire doused by sprinkler system

No one was injured after a fire in a bedroom at Liberty Gardens shortly before midnight on Saturday.  Officials with the Rome Fire Department said that the fire started in a bedroom at the North Levitt Street apartment complex and was doused by the sprinkler system. Responding fire crews took a hose line to the second floor of the apartment to check for extensions.  Witnesses on the scene said that there were three children in the apartment at the time of the fire but that all three got out of the apartment safely.  Fire officials said that the cause of the bedroom fire remains under investigation.

Nursing Home/Senior Living, Residential

Newark, NY – Nursing home fire doused by sprinkler system

A sprinkler system is being credited with preventing a potentially large fire last Thursday evening at the Newark Manor Nursing Home on West Pearl Street.

Dick Colacino, the Newark Volunteer Fire Department’s public information officer, said firefighters responded to the site following an automatic box alarm and calls to 911. Assistant Chief Kevin Velte, who was first on the scene, reported smoke in the building and Chief Gerald VanDewalle called for mutual aid from Fairville and Lyons to assist with possible evacuation.

The cause was determined to be a portable air conditioner that caught fire. The blaze was doused by a sprinkler in a data closet housing the nursing home computers, preventing more extensive damage.

VanDewalle said a combination of the automatic smoke and fire alarm system, and a working sprinkler, prevented a much more serious incident. There was fire and smoke damage in the data room, as well as damage to computers and other equipment.

VanDewalle commended nursing home staff, firefighters, Newark police and EMS personnel for evacuating and isolating residents. Thirty-five firefighters were at the scene for more than two hours, clearing smoke from the building with fans.

Colacino said the working sprinkler system is a testament of their value, and firefighters are disappointed that the state Legislature has not passed a fire sprinkler law for all new one- and two-family homes.

 

Apartment Building, Residential

Rome, NY – Apartment kitchen fire put out by sprinkler system

No one was injured after food left on a stove resulted in a fire at Liberty Gardens Wednesday morning.  Fire officials said the residents of Apartment 711 accidentally left food unattended on the stove shortly before 8:30 a.m.

The flames spread from the stove top to the oven hood and the upper exhaust hood before the apartment’s sprinkler system put it out, the Rome fire officials added. The fire was out by the time crews arrived on the scene.

The firefighters checked to make sure the fire hadn’t spread further, and helped to clear the water out of the apartment.

 

College/University (on campus), School / University

New Paltz, NY – Firefighters credit sprinkler system for containing fire in university’s fine arts building

A fire Thursday night damaged a studio in the Fine Arts Building at SUNY New Paltz, and the building will be closed until Monday, according to the college. The Graphic Design Thesis Show, from 4-7 p.m. Friday in the building’s rotunda, was scheduled to go on as planned, however, according to a message sent to students, staff and faculty.

The fire began in the building’s wood and sculpture studio, on the first floor, according to a statement from the college. There were no injuries. Firefighters responding to an automatic alarm and reports of smoke in the building discovered “heavy smoke and heat” in the first-floor hallway, the New Paltz Fire Department said Friday on its Facebook page.

They then found the blaze and extinguished it, the department said. The fire department credited “a well maintained sprinkler system” with containing the blaze to the room in which it began. The building’s fire alarm system was back in service Friday, according to the college.

 An email sent to the college community Friday afternoon said the Fine Arts Building’s studios were closed to students but were expected to reopen Monday morning. No one will be allowed to work in the building until Monday as personnel repair water damage, the email stated.  Information about how the fire might have started and what time it was reported was not immediately available

Grocery Store / Super Center, Retail

East Hampton, NY – Sprinkler system helps contain fire at grocery store

Stop and Shop in East Hampton Village reopened Wednesday evening after a fire broke out in a mechanical room hours earlier. 

East Hampton Fire Department Chief Richard Osterberg Jr. said a sprinkler system helped to contain the fire, which appeared to have been caused by debris, such as cardboard, that had been placed too close to a generator.

Employees at the grocery store at 67 Newtown Lane called 911 when they saw smoke, which had spread to the main part of the store, the chief said. They got customers out of the building, he said. Simultaneously, police dispatchers received a call from the alarm company about an automatic fire alarm that had been activated. Smoke was coming out of the back of the store, though it was hard to see because it is up against trees in Herrick Park, he added.

Gerry Turza, the second assistant chief, was the first chief to arrive, and he began “an aggressive interior attack” of the fire, Chief Osterberg said. Within 15 minutes, firefighters used 350 feet of hose to douse the flames “before damage really spread,” he said. Only some of the contents of the room, which also contains refrigerator compressors and circuit breakers, were damaged. The building itself was not compromised.

Chief Osterberg notified the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, which oversees grocery stores, because there was a risk of food contamination from the smoke that spread to the store. He said a representative was to visit the store from the Brooklyn office and would have to sign-off on the reopening.

A Stop and Shop representative could not immediately be reached, but an employee at the store Wednesday evening said it had reopened around 6:30 p.m.

Managing the fire scene was no easy task, as the store is located in the middle of the village business district, off the busy Reutershan parking lot, with many cars and people coming and going, the chief said. The East Hampton Village Police Department was a tremendous help, he said, in closing off the parking lot to additional cars and keeping the entrances open for fire trucks to get through. “P.D. was really phenomenal,” he said. 

The Stop and Shop staff of about 20 was also helpful; they didn’t panic, they evacuated the building, and then stayed together in the parking lot so that they could all be accounted for and there was no question whether firefighters needed to search for anyone. “They have a plan in place that they do run practice on,” the chief said.