Tag Archives: Wisconsin

Manufacturing, Manufacturing Plant

Automatic sprinkler contains fire at Mercury Marine plant (Fond du Lac, WI)

No one was hurt and damage was minor in a fire at Mercury Marine Monday afternoon. The Fond du Lac Fire Department responded to the call at 2:36 p.m. Upon arrival, crews learned the fire started in Plant 98 in a dust collector. The automatic fire sprinkler activated and contained and extinguished the fire. “The fire suppression system worked as designed and kept the fire contained to the dust collector” said, Fond du Lac Fire Chief Peter O’Leary.

Hotel / Motel, Hotel / Restaurant

Fire at resort hotel and spa doused by sprinkler system (Lake Geneva, WI)

Several local fire departments responded to The Cove Thursday night after a fire was detected in the sauna on the lower level pool area. The call came in at about 7 p.m.

“We pulled the Box Alarm because of the size and occupancy of the structure,” Lake Geneva Deputy Fire Chief Dan Derrick said. “Fortunately, the fire sprinkler functioned exactly at it was designed to, which prevented a much more serious fire from causing extensive damage.”

Other / Not Specified, Other Business

Sprinklers minimize damage in electrical fire at lumber yard (Birnamwood, WI)

A fire that caused relatively minor damage to a Birnamwood business Sunday night likely was caused by an electrical malfunction. Fire crews responded to a sprinkler alarm at Kersten Lumber at about 9:35 p.m. Sunday, Birnamwood Area Fire Chief Randy Berger said.  When crews arrived, they found heavy smoke coming from the building, he said. One wall had burned, he said, but the damage was not bad. No one was hurt in the incident and the sprinkler system kept the fire contained, he said.

Apartment Building, Residential

Sprinkler system controls apartment fire cause by smoking materials (Madison, WI)

The fire department responded to a report of a structure fire in a two-story multiple-family structure around 9:50 a.m.  When crews went into the building they found that the fire was extinguished and under control with one sprinkler head activated closest to the fire, officials said.  Officials said the occupant of the apartment was not home at the time of the fire.  The fire was caused by careless use of smoking materials, investigators said. The resident said he dumped recently-used smoking materials into a wicker basket used for trash before he left the apartment.  The wicker trash basket and a stuffed chair caught fire.  

Apartment Building, Residential

Sprinkler puts out fire at apartments that burned in 2007 (Madison, WI)

Six years after a blaze destroyed a Madison apartment building, officials say the sprinkler system at a new building on the same site prevented serious damage from a weekend fire.  The fire started Saturday when a discarded cigarette ignited a Christmas tree on a balcony, authorities said.  By the time firefighters arrived, however, an automatic sprinkler had already extinguished the fire, leaving the building with only cosmetic damage, officials said.  That’s a far cry from July of 2007, when a fire started by a cigarette butt caused $3.5 million in damage, according to State Journal archives.

“This is a perfect example of how fire sprinkler systems limit damage and most importantly, save lives,” Madison Fire Department spokeswoman Bernadette Galvez said in a statement.

Hotel / Restaurant, Restaurant

Sprinkler contains restaurant fire (Appleton, WI)

A fire sprinkler kept a restaurant blaze at bay Thursday morning.  At about 4:30 a.m., a fire alarm called firefighters to Pullmans restaurant in Appleton where they found smoke and a small fire in a storage room, Battalion Chief Darrel Baker, of the Appleton Fire Department, said. The fire appeared to have started in a bin of dirty uniforms, but the cause is unknown. The fire damage will not affect lunch service at the restaurant, which opens at 11 a.m., Pullmans general manager said.