A water gong alarm at 3:08 a.m. woke residents of a second-floor unit on the 3100 block of Canterfield Parkway East, and they soon realized the furniture on their balcony was on fire, according to a news release from the village.
All residents of the building had evacuated by the time firefighters arrived. Firefighters extinguished the blaze, which authorities believe was caused by careless use of smoking materials, within five minutes, the news release said.
When the sprinkler system was triggered, the fire alarms sounded, dispatching the Franklin Fire Department to the location. Those crews arrived at Pediatric Associates of Franklin – located at 570 Baker’s Bridge Avenue – and found light smoke and one active sprinkler. The sprinkler had extinguished a fire in a patient examination room before firefighters made it there.
Franklin fire investigators said the damage was limited to the room where the small blaze began.
Damage to the building is estimated to be less than $10,000. No interruption of business or care is expected for the practice.
“She said, ‘The house is on fire,'” Douglas said.
Fortunately, Douglas’ 74-year-old mother and the rest of the residents of the seven-story Station 101 apartment building on Rantoul Street escaped unharmed in what Beverly Fire Department officials said could have turned into a much worse situation.
A fire that started in the kitchen of a fourth-floor apartment forced the evacuation of residents and caused about 30 of them to have to find another place to stay. A man in the apartment where the fire started was found unresponsive by firefighters in a smoke-filled bedroom, but he became alert when firefighters quickly got him outside and was seemingly uninjured, fire officials said.
Beverly fire Capt. Jeff Sirois said fire sprinklers proved effective in limiting the spread of the flames, although there was a “substantial” amount of smoke and water damage from the fourth floor to the first floor.
“In the grand scheme of things it could’ve been a lot worse if the building wasn’t sprinklered,” Sirois said.
Sirois said the cause of the fire is under investigation but might have been “cooking related.”
Firefighters were called to the building at 101 Rantoul St. at 11:45 p.m. and arrived to find the fourth-floor hallway filled with smoke from a kitchen fire in one of the apartments. Crews worked to fully extinguish the fire, which officials said had been held at bay by sprinklers.
Once the fire was out, crews ventilated the smoke and pulled ceiling tiles damaged by water on the first three floors. The Beverly Fire Department posted a fire watch overnight until the alarm system could be reactivated.
Station 101, formerly known as The Millery, has been an apartment building for decades. It has 99 one- and two-bedroom apartments and is valued at more than $10 million, according to city records. It is unclear how many people live there. Officials from Peabody Properties, which manages the building, did not return phone calls.
Douglas, 48, praised firefighters as well as the management company and the American Red Cross for their response to the fire. Douglas said the Red Cross gave residents gift cards for breakfast and hotel rooms. She and her mother spent Wednesday night in a hotel and were expected to stay one more night before returning to their apartment on Friday.
“Everybody was right on top of everything,” Douglas said.
Douglas said her apartment, which is two floors below the apartment where the fire started, had very little damage, other than wet furniture and rugs. She said there was up to two inches of water on the floor in the hallways below the fourth floor.
“For me, my mom got out,” she said. “Everything else is material stuff.”
Fire crews were called at 10:54 p.m. and found a pallet full of cardboard boxes on fire, Lakewood Fire Chief Mike D’Elia, Jr. said.
Firefighters extinguished the blaze within a matter of minutes, D’Elia said.
There was no one inside the warehouse at the time and no injuries were reported.
The chief said investigators indicated batteries in a Bluetooth device likely started the fire.
A sprinkler directly above the fire activated and kept the fire “at bay,” D’Elia said. The damage was contained to the boxes on one pallet.
He estimated that had the sprinklers not activated, about a quarter of the items in the warehouse would have been in flames by the time firefighters arrived.
“It did it’s job,” D’Elia said of the sprinkler system.
A security guard patrolling the area of Flagship Motorcars of Lynnfield on Broadway around 4 a.m. called 911 after noticing a glow coming from the front window of the building, according to Lynnfield Fire Chief Glenn Davis.
Firefighters responding to the scene found that a sprinkler system contained the flames to the vehicle but the building had been filled with smoke.
Crews dealt with freezing temperatures, which caused the parking lot to ice over.
One firefighter may have sustained a finger injury from falling on the ice but no one was transported to the hospital, Davis said.
Hours after the first fire broke out, a second vehicle parked in the lot outside the showroom started smoking and smoldering.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating the cause of the fires.
Investigators are looking into what started a fire at a restaurant on Mackinac Island.
Crews were called to the Village Inn just around 10:45 Wednesday night.
Firefighters evacuated several people on the second floor of the building.
Fire fighters were able to put out the fire on the first floor with help from the restaurant’s sprinkler system.
There is no word on what started it, but the Mackinac Island Fire Department says it is not considered suspicious.
Fire officials are investigating a blaze that broke out at our local outlet mall Tuesday.
The incident happened shortly after 9 p.m.
According to fire officials, heavy smoke was seen inside a store at the Outlet Shoppes at Laredo.
At the time, smoke was coming through some of the clothing items at the store when the sprinkler system went off.
Fire officials say no injuries were reported and there were no damages to other stores.
Crews arrived on scene and encountered the fire in the facility’s laundry room where it was contained by the fire sprinkler system,
No injuries and little damage are being reported as of late Tuesday.
Firefighters remained on scene searching for any remaining fire, venting smoke and checking the sprinkler system.
“Although the fire was limited, our department will continue to remain on scene and work with Medilodge staff to get back to normal,” said the department’s Twitter feed.
The Emagine Theatre posted on its Facebook page they will open Tuesday at 4p.m.
The Emagine Theatre in Birch Run was evacuated Monday night due to a report of a fire in a bathroom.
A firefighter tells Mid-Michigan NOW there was a fire in the women’s bathroom.
A sprinkler put the fire out and caused some water damage.
“No guests were harmed in the incident. A patron was smoking in the restroom, threw the cigarette into the trash and it caught on fire. Staff reacted immediately and the fire was extinguished. Emagine is expected to be open for business as usual tomorrow,” said Emagine Entertainment CEO Anthony LaVerde.
The library remained closed through Monday for cleanup following the fire, and reopened with regular operating hours on Tuesday.
Charlevoix Township Fire Department Fire Chief Dan Thorp said that if it was not for the library’s sprinkler system — and given the time of day that it started — “the entire library could have burned down and they would probably have had to build a whole new library.”
“It would have been a good half-hour before anyone even noticed it burning. It is an old building with all the books — it would have had to be rebuilt,” Thorp said.
Thorp commended the library for its maintenance of fire suppression equipment, noting that “the library has done an outstanding job in keeping their equipment up to date.”
The fire chief said his department got called to the library for a fire alarm activation at 12:30 a.m. on Saturday.
“We were there until about 1:40 a.m.,” he said.
Thorp added, “By the time we got there and got into the building we heard water running and saw smoke that was coming out the front door.”
The fire chief said the sprinkler system had already put the fire out by the time firefighters entered the building.
“As we investigated, we saw that on the second floor in the director’s office area they had two humidifiers and the one on the lower level, powered by electricity, had some malfunction that we are not quite clear of,” said Thorp. “That malfunction caught on fire and there was a sprinkler head in that room which then was activated and put the fire out.
“The fire department did not have to spray any water to put out the fire.”
When firefighters walked into the building, only the sprinklers in the mechanical closet in the director’s office on the second floor were activated.
Thorp said, “Wherever the fire is, it reaches a certain temperature and sets the sprinklers off in that location.”
Charlevoix library director Ryan Deery said none of the technology or book collections were damaged. The only fire damage occurred in the maintenance closet and water damage occurred in the hallways on the first and second floors, said Deery, also stating about an inch of water flooded both floors in those areas.
Deery said clean-up company Serv Pro was on scene immediately the following morning and set up dehumidifies, heaters and other equipment which ran all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
“Most of the items do not need to be replaced.” said Deery. However, “some of the walls may still have water in them”. Serv Pro will be assessing the scene on Feb. 19 to determine if further steps need to be taken to rid the walls of moisture.
On Facebook, the library noted that Servpro was helping with the fire follow-up, and indicated: “We are confident that all the collections are safe and did not sustain any damage.”
A Sunday post on the library’s Facebook page read, “Thanks again to all of your support and offers of help. We are incredibly thankful both that the damage was not worse and that we are able to continue functioning as the hub and heart of the community so quickly.”
Deery said he is heartened by the outpouring of support from the community.
