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Daily Comet

Officials say a 4-year-old boy playing with a cigarette lighter set fire to a bedroom in a Tampa apartment. No one was injured.

Firefighters responded, but a sprinkler had already controlled the blaze.

The Tampa Fire Marshal’s Office reported that a man was at home with her grandson when he came out of the bedroom crying. Authorities say he admitted setting the bed on fire. Damage was estimated at $15,000. The boy will be referred to the Juvenile Firesetters Program.

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BY TAMMY STABLES BATTAGLIA AND GINA DAMRON – Detroit Free Press

Fire caused more than $50,000 in damage and displaced nearly 40 residents in Auburn Hills this morning.

“I smelled smoke and it woke me up,” said James Sparks, 72, who has lived in the Auburn Hills Apartments in the building at 2819 Patrick Henry since 1981. “Then they said ‘get out.’ ”

Lt. Casimir Miarka said the 5:40 a.m. fire at the Auburn Hills Apartments likely started in the basement of the building near the storage or laundry room areas.

He said the building was evacuated and an employee at the complex said at 1:15 p.m. that tenants had not yet been allowed back in.

A second-floor apartment in the multi-home building was totaled, with smoke scarring the façade outside. The area under it, just below ground level, was severely damaged and smoke permeated a number of other apartments, Auburn Hills Deputy Fire Chief John Burmeister said.

“I thought someone was arguing with the cops,” said building resident Kyle Babcock, 22, a medical laboratory science student at nearby Oakland University, about hearing firefighters in the hallway near dawn. “I opened the door and they said ‘Get out!’”

The apartment complex is home to many college students, Miarka said.

Firefighters were putting out hot spots and clearing smoke from the building until just after 11 a.m.

The building did not have sprinklers due to its age, which predates sprinkler requirements, Burmeister said.

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Post-Bulletin

Two fires in Rochester were limited when sprinkler systems were able to contain flames until firefighters arrived.

The first incident occurred about 7:30 p.m. Monday at 2076 11th Ave. S.E., Unit A. A pot left cooking on a stove apparently started the fire in the condo. The sprinkler system put the fire out, said fire marshal Vance Swisher.

However, water from the sprinklers seeped into two other condo units, Swisher said, which resulted in damage estimated at $10,000.

In the second incident, smoke began filling Kindercare Learning Center, 2460 Clare Lane N.E., about 8 a.m. Tuesday. Firefighters said combustible storage materials were placed too close to a water heater. The children were evacuated.

The building’s sprinklers put out the fire, Swisher said. No one was injured; damage has been estimated at $3,000 to $5,000.

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By Margaret Gibbons – Pottstown Mercury

NORRISTOWN – Alleging the inferno at a Conshohocken apartment complex could have been prevented, a Philadelphia law firm filed a civil lawsuit Monday claiming negligence by the developer, construction managers, contractors and complex management.

The lawsuit, filed in Montgomery County Court and naming five specific plaintiffs, is seeking class action status to represent the hundreds of residents at the Riverwalk at Millennium complex who sustained damages in the eight-alarm fire.

Last Wednesday’s fire, which required the efforts of more than 300 firefighters to bring under control, destroyed two occupied apartment buildings and one apartment building under construction. The blaze, which was ruled accidental, broke out in the five-story wood frame building under construction and then quickly spread to the two occupied buildings.

Some 345 people initially were displaced but those in two unaffected buildings were allowed back on Sunday. However, the fire consumed a combined 180 units in two other buildings, according to officials.

“It is clear that neither the project under construction nor the Riverwalk complex that was occupied were built to avoid a foreseeable catastrophic fire,” said Larry Bendesky, a partner in the Philadelphia law firm of Saltz, Mongeluzzi, Barrett & Bendesky and co-counsel in the litigation with lead counsel Robert J. Mongeluzzi.

“As we have observed in similar disasters, this represents a complete failure to prevent an easily preventable calamity,” said Bendesky.

Named as defendants in the litigation are: O’Neill Properties Group of Upper Merion, the developer and former owner of the Riverwalk buildings and the developer of the under-construction Stables apartment building; Merion Construction Inc., listed at the same Upper Merion address, and L21 Construction Managers of Leesport, both of which are listed as construction managers/general contractors for The Stables building; Cavan Construction of Aston, a subcontractor whose employees are alleged to have accidentally started the fire; and, Bozzuto Corp. of Maryland, who took over management of the Riverwalk complex after O’Neill sold its interest.

The lawsuit contains numerous allegations against multiple and individual defendants.

These allegations range from failing to properly supervise workers at the construction site to failing to consider fire protection implications of building a five-story wood-frame construction residential structure to failing to install sprinklers and firewalls in the attic of the Riverwalk buildings and failing to inform residents of this lack.

Many of these allegations will be fleshed out during the litigation, according to Mongeluzzi.

“We have assembled a team that includes leading construction and fire prevention system engineers and we will get to the bottom of this and obtain justice for the victims,” said Mongeluzzi.

One area on which this team will focus is the relationship between O’Neill Properties and Merion Construction, according to Mongeluzzi.

“It is the role of the general contractor to act independently to ensure the safety of the construction site,” said Mongeluzzi. “However, in this case, Merion is a wholly owned subsidiary of O’Neill Properties.”

“Unfortunately, in all these types of tragedies that occur, there always seems to be a place for the plaintiffs’ lawyers,” said O’Neill Properties Chairman Brian O’Neill when asked about the lawsuit. “Our attorneys will be responding to the lawsuit and, other than that, I have no comment.”

“This looks to be just a freak accident,” said O’Neill, adding that his company already has put together its own team of outside experts to review the incident.

Questioned about the use of wood framing, O’Neill responded that 95 percent of all residential buildings have wood framing.

Sever years ago, the building industry was looking into using chemically treated and pressure treated wood for fire safety. However, after believing it had found the solution, the industry subsequently learned that the treated wood was found to have carcinogens that released into the air in completed dwellings, according to O’Neill. Since that time, treated wood has been banned for construction.

O’Neill defended his buildings.

“Buildings are designed to get people out safely and that is what happened here,” said O’Neill.

Both O’Neill and Conshohocken Council President Sandra Caterbone maintained that all of the buildings in question were built in accordance with the borough’s building and fire codes.

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View more articles about the Conshohocken Apartment Fire

By Jeff Gammage, Joelle Farrell, Diane Mastrull and Larry King
Philadelphia Inquirer

Investigators spent yesterday pressing their search into the cause of the massive blaze that lit up the Conshohocken waterfront on Wednesday night. But they can’t yet say how the fire started.

As scores of people milled at the site of the blaze, some newly homeless, many in despair, Gov. Rendell asked for a federal disaster declaration, which would allow the Small Business Administration to make low-interest loans available to people who suffered damages.

Conshohocken Fire Chief Robert Phipps called the fire one of the worst in borough history, in which the leaping flames were punctuated by explosions of materials at the construction site where the fire started.

“It went up like a match,” Mayor Joe Collins said.

Although police said yesterday morning that there was no sign of arson, fire officials later said they had not ruled out anything yet.

Yesterday, a pale blue sky hung over Conshohocken, making the devil-red inferno of the previous night seem like a bad dream. Dark beds of burnt wood, the ruins of a part of the luxury apartment complex, offered silent proof of the conflagration.

Remarkably, given the fire’s size and intensity, no one was killed.

The flames tore through the Riverwalk at Millennium, built as part of a Schuylkill riverfront renaissance. The fire began in a building that was under construction and quickly spread to occupied areas of the $51.8 million project, destroying two apartment buildings and leaving an estimated 375 people homeless.

The complex, on an old industrial site, was part of a riverfront revitalization led in part by developer J. Brian O’Neill. He built and then sold the housing development and currently owns the construction site, the Stables at Millennium, where the fire began.

Conshohocken Borough officials said yesterday that O’Neill’s projects were never cited for code violations. They were unable to immediately produce a record of inspections performed over the years.

At the scene yesterday, O’Neill said that although he didn’t know exactly what the borough regulations required when Riverwalk was built, his construction department told him “that everything was according to code, to the absolute centimeter.”

State Department of Labor and Industry officials said yesterday that O’Neill’s company had sought and received – after two initial denials – a variance from the Pennsylvania Industrial Board in 2003 that allowed the use of a sprinkler system a grade below the state standard of the time.

The variance allowed Riverwalk to use residential-grade sprinklers in return for adding more firewalls.

State officials said such variances were not unusual.

On Wednesday, O’Neill arrived at the scene as firefighters fought what became an eight-alarm blaze, helping to find food and water for crews and hotel rooms for displaced residents.

The blaze was declared under control about 10:30 p.m. A little after 11 p.m., as fire companies rolled up hoses, O’Neill optimistically described the devastation as “a temporary setback.”

He rejected any suggestion that an abundance of wood framing played any role in the aggressive pace of the fire, and defended the buildings’ construction, insisting, “Everything was done right.”

Mayor Collins said borough officers and engineers regularly inspected the site and found no violations. Sandra Caterbone, the Borough Council president, offered a strong defense of O’Neill: “He is clean and follows our codes to a T,” she said. “Whatever we want him to do, he does.”

The fire started about 4:52 p.m., sending a plume of dense black smoke into the rush-hour sky, disrupting SEPTA train service and slowing traffic to a crawl on the Schuylkill Expressway.

Yesterday morning, the trains and traffic were back to normal – it was people’s lives that had been altered.

At the site, some residents milled in parking lots, talking quietly or just staring at the ruins. One woman knelt on the pavement, sobbing into the shins of a friend who comforted her. Others seemed dazed, having lost everything they owned.

“I never imagined something like this would happen,” said one woman, newly homeless.

Officials said 11 firefighters were slightly injured, most suffering from heat exhaustion. Firefighters came from as far away as Pottstown to fight the blaze.

Yesterday afternoon, hundreds of residents gathered at the Spring Mill Fire Company, boarding buses that took them to their homes in the two largely undamaged apartment buildings.

There they were to be let inside briefly to recover essential belongings such as medications. Residents were warned that their apartments would look “broken into,” as firefighters had smashed doors to search for people and pets.

The power was still out yesterday, but officials said they hoped those residents could move back in soon, possibly today.

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View article on tenants lawsuit following Conshohocken apartment fire

By Rosemarie Bernardo – Honolulu Star-Bulletin

A lit cigarette butt caused a condominium fire at a Waikiki high-rise yesterday.

About 40 firefighters responded to a blaze on the top floor of Kaimana Villa, 2550 Kuhio Ave. Firefighters arrived at unit 2501 at 12:08 p.m. and contained the fire at 12:20 p.m.

Damage to the unit and its contents was estimated at $30,000.

Capt. Earl Kealoha, spokesman of the Honolulu Fire Department, said a male resident apparently discarded a cigarette butt into a small plastic receptacle on the balcony before he left his condo about an hour and a half before the fire. The cigarette butt wasn’t fully extinguished and began to smolder, igniting other material within the receptacle and the receptacle itself.

Firefighters arrived within minutes and prevented the fire from roaring throughout the entire unit. Nearby units and buildings were not affected by the blaze.

The blaze started on the 25th floor of the Kaimana Villa building on Kuhio Avenue just after noon Tuesday.

The American Red Cross Hawaii Chapter is assisting with living arrangements for the resident and another occupant.

As firefighters responded, some residents of the high-rise were slow to evacuate and others declined to do so.

“People were still watering their plants and cruising,” said resident Jessica Arakawa, 24, who walked down more than a dozen flights of stairs to evacuate the building after she was alerted by a fire alarm.

Arakawa, who lives on the 19th floor, saw black soot and smoke billowing from the balcony six floors above her before she left the building. She said she saw firefighters containing the fire to the affected unit.

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By PAM DOUGLAS – Brampton Guardian

BRAMPTON – Genesis Lodge would be a pile of rubble right now if it weren’t for a residential sprinkler alarm system, according to Brampton fire officials.

“This is the greatest success we could ever have,” said Brian Maltby, Brampton’s fire prevention division chief, of the sprinkler system. “We saved the people and we saved the building.”

A fire Thursday afternoon at the Church Street East house, a residential care facility for those living with mental illness, was quickly doused by one small sprinkler head in a sprinkler system installed by the operator 10 years ago.

Firefighters were on scene within minutes, but found only a smouldering mattress, which, Peel police say, had been deliberately set alight by one of the home’s residents.

The fire was contained to a second-floor bedroom in the 1850s house and everyone inside escaped. The building was turned into a lodging house 20 years ago and had just recently been designated under the Ontario Heritage Act.

Brampton firefighters have been advocating for years that sprinkler systems be made mandatory in all homes, pointing out that they save lives and minimize damage.

Six staff and 14 of the 19 residents who live in the three-storey house were inside when the fire started. Staff was praised by Maltby for implementing their emergency procedures and getting everyone out safely. There were no injuries. Even the resident bird and cat are fine.

Mohammed Khan, 47, a resident of the home, was charged by Peel police with arson the same day.

The evacuated residents spent the night in a local motel, but it was hoped they would be able to return home yesterday or today.

“Everybody’s distraught and shaken by the experience,” said Natalie Smith, an intake worker at the home. “This has never, ever happened. This is an upset for their normal routine of life.”

Typically, such a fire would have forced the occupants out for months, Maltby pointed out.

“They will hopefully be back home by tonight or tomorrow,” he said Thursday.

It’s the perfect example of the effectiveness of a residential sprinkler system, he said.

“We’re definitely grateful for the sprinkler system that we have set up,” Smith said, adding the safety of the residents was uppermost in all of the staff’s minds.

A day after the scare, there was very little to indicate there was a fire in the old house. The walls, which would in a typical fire be blackened by smoke, were untouched by the blaze, even the walls right by the bed, Maltby pointed out.

Maltby pointed to toiletries sitting on a dresser near the bed.

“In a normal fire, they would all be melted,” he said.

Maltby also praised a staff worker who pulled a burning blanket off the bed and threw it onto the adjacent fire escape, then grabbed a fire extinguisher as the alarm sounded.

“The sprinkler went off while she was in the room,” said Brampton fire investigator Michael Roess. She didn’t use the extinguisher, they said, and instead shut the bedroom door, which contained any smoke generated by the burning mattress and was exactly the right thing do to, Maltby said.

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BY TAMMY KRIKORIAN – Carson Times

Reno firefighters stopped a fire at a downtown condominium project Tuesday afternoon in less than an hour after it produced thick, heavy clouds of black smoke and forcing nearby evacuations.

The fire at The Belvedere, the former Sundowner Hotel Casino being developed into luxury condominiums, was reported just before 5 p.m. on a mid-level roof over the office and porte-cochere and crawled up the north wall of the south tower. The cause remained under investigation.

Reno fire spokesman Steve Frady said most of the damage was to the exterior of the south building. Fire-resistant construction helped prevent the fire from spreading to the interior, where there was some water and smoke damage. Some light smoke was reported in the north tower, but no fire.

Ten to 15 residents had moved into the north tower, said Anita Perez, Belvedere managing sales agent. She said the south tower is under construction, and crews had left by 3:30 p.m.

Perez was not at the building when the fire began but said the office staff was alerted by a pedestrian who saw the flames. Perez said residents and staff were evacuated within minutes and there was no damage to the north tower.

Battalion Chief Brent Swearingen said one sprinkler head activated in the south tower.

“All of the built-in fire protection systems did what they were supposed to do,” Swearingen said, “and the fire was kept to the exterior of the building.”

He said there was light smoke in the north tower but residents were allowed to return.

Several traffic lanes surrounding the structure at Fourth Street and Arlington Avenue were closed. Several pedestrians watched the fire, including Kathy Nichols who said she moved into the north tower about a month ago.

Nichols said she works near the University of Nevada, Reno and saw a “big, black cloud” of smoke as she headed home.

“By the time I got here, the smoke had pretty much died down,” she said, adding she hoped to be able to go home and take care of her cat.

“It looks better than it did,” Robert Pettigrew, 47, said about an hour after the blaze was reported.

Joy Klingenfuss, 23, of Reno, spotted smoke from West Street.

“I couldn’t even see the (Silver) Legacy,” she said. “(The fire) sounded like aluminum foil blowing across the ground.”

About 50 firefighters responded with three ladder trucks and eight fire engines. Police controlled traffic on West, Fourth and Fifth streets and Arlington Avenue. No injuries were reported.

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By Zachary McDonald – Bellevue Leader

A small kitchen fire at Harmony Court, an independent living facility off Wall Street, left some elderly residents displaced Monday afternoon after Bellevue volunteer firefighters secured the area.

The fire proved the apartment building’s sprinkler system works, but it created a new problem.

“The sprinklers did their job and put it out,” said Jack Syphers, BVFD spokesman, “but now there’s water damage on the lower floor. I heard the ceiling in apartment 108 collapsed.”

Syphers said three apartments were uninhabitable, two because of water damage and the one where the fire started. He wasn’t sure how many residents were displaced, but he said at least three and at most five.

The American Red Cross was working Monday night to find accommodations for those residents.

The official cause of the fire was unknown as of Monday.

One female resident who was having difficulty breathing was transported to the hospital. Another person was treated at the scene and released.

The building’s sprinkler system extinguished the fire, which never extended beyond apartment 210. Residents were evacuated from the whole building, but were soon let back into the dining room in the west wing.

Lee Drake, who lives in apartment 206, said it took the residents a while to decide to leave.

“First I heard was there’s a real fire,” Drake said. “I could tell people, including myself, weren’t too sure.”
Julie, Lee’s wife, said she saw Jean Smith, who lives in 210, standing in the hall with smoke pouring out of her apartment.

“She said, ‘My apartment’s on fire,’ and I said, ‘Well come out and shut the door then,’” Julie said. “I was just afraid of the smoke because [Lee's] on oxygen.”

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By CURT HILLS – Villages Daily Sun

THE VILLAGES — Stephen and Mary Jayne Wrobel made the right decision when their house went dark and a smoke smell emerged during a thunderstorm Friday evening.

The Village of Sunset Ridge at Sunset Pointe couple exited their home before fire destroyed it right before their eyes and those of concerned neighbors.

“As long as nobody got hurt, that’s the main thing,” Wrobel said as he watched firefighters douse water on the shell of his home on Blenheim Trail. “We can replace a house.”

The home was deemed a total loss with house and vehicle damages possibly reaching $400,000, according to District Public Safety Department Deputy Chief Edmund Cain. The fire is being investigated as a possible lightning strike, he said.

The house fire erupted during heavy thunderstorm activity that rolled across the community as firefighters were responding to two possible structure fires at the same time. Another possible lightning strike in the 1400 block of Blueberry Way caused electrical damage to a water sprinkler system. Fifty-three seconds later, the 911 call came in for the Wrobels’ residence around 8:30 p.m.

Firefighters knew early on they were dealing with an aggressive blaze at the Wrobels. Lt. Bob Davis said he noticed it from a few miles away.

“I was down at Buena Vista (Boulevard) and St. Charles Place and could see the flames shooting up in the air,” Davis said. “When I got here, the garage was totally engulfed.”

Cain said the structure was 40-percent involved when firefighters first arrived.

Wrobel said he and his wife had just entered their home when they heard a loud noise, and then witnessed the power go off — first on one half of the house, then the other half.

“Then I smelled smoke and I told my wife we better get out,” he said.

As they were exiting, a neighbor who had been driving by, was present at their door, also encouraging them to get out, Cain said.

Cain praised the Wrobels for doing the right thing.

“It was a smart move on their part; they got out of the house after they heard a noise,” Cain said. “We knew very quickly that we didn’t have people trapped inside, which made it much safer for everyone involved in battling this unfortunate blaze.”

“You never think it can happen to you,” Wrobel said, shaking his head.

But despite losing his house, his heart ached for his friend, Larry Thompson.

Thompson was storing his 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, with 31,000 original miles on it, inside the Wrobels’ garage. Thompson said he had just completed 13 years of restoration work on his pride and joy — a vehicle featured in many car shows and trade publications.

“That’s my 401(k) there,” Thompson said, gesturing to where his collector’s car was stored. “What are the odds? At least a million to one.”

Firefighters from both the District Public Safety Department and Lake County battled the stubborn flames for 70 minutes. At one point, the roof of the structure caved in, leaving firefighters to douse only the remains with water.

Despite the total loss, Wrobel praised firefighters.

“They’ve done a terrific job,” he said.

Besides Lake County, firefighters from Fruitland Park and Leesburg provided assistance in covering The Villages. Besides the two fire calls, a golf cart rollover was reported near Cane Garden Country Club and two cardiac arrest calls came in — all within 20 minutes of the fire on Blenheim Trail.

Neighbor Bob Csaszar said the circuit breakers inside his home began popping shortly after he heard a large burst of thunder.

“I said ‘I’m going to the roof,’” he told his wife, suspecting his own house might have been hit. “When I looked this way, I saw the smoke and flames. The greatest fear I had is fire spreading.”

But firefighters were able to contain the blaze to the single structure. Cain said other homes were not damaged.

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