A fire sprinkler system is being credited for saving the lives of an Avondale couple, and keeping a roof over the heads of 17 others.
The feat of mechanical heroism occurred Jan. 25 at The Village at Avondale apartment complex, 12721 W. Buckeye Road, said Battalion Chief Ben Avitia of the Avondale Fire Department.
“The people were asleep when the fire started,” Avitia said. “And by the time we got there, the sprinkler had already put it out. Had it not been for that sprinkler head, that fire would have spread considerably, potentially affecting everyone else in that building.”
The blaze began shortly before 4 a.m. in an unoccupied bedroom of a second-floor apartment, Avitia said.
“We’re not exactly sure what started it; we believe it was either a candle or, potentially, something that had been left plugged in for some time,” he said. “Even though the residents weren’t in the room at the time, it wasn’t empty — there was clothing left around both items. So the fire could have been started by either one of those two things.”
Where there’s smoke …
Because sprinkler heads don’t go to work until the temperature near the ceiling reaches 150 degrees, the room’s smoke detector was the first safety device to activate, Avitia said.
“The smoke detector might have alerted them to the fire, but it’s hard to say positively that it saved their lives,” he said. “Once you start breathing in smoke, you can become disoriented, start getting displaced and become unsure of what you’re doing. And in a home without sprinklers, a fire will spread fast so the potential of not getting out in time is always there. Plus, because the sprinkler head puts it out so fast, there’s a lot less smoke.”
In this case, the sprinkler system worked so fast that the blaze had already been extinguished by the time firefighters arrived.
“All we had to do is a little mop up work,” Avitia said. “With sprinkler systems, you’re still going to get a little bit of water damage that you have to address, but that’s very minimal compared to the damage we usually see, which is caused by the fire and the water from our own hoses. So all we had to do was clean up the water, set up fans to clear out the smoke and we were done.”
But before getting started on cleanup duty, firefighters cleared out the residents of the other seven apartments in the building, which Avitia said is “common procedure.”
“During a fire, it’s not always obvious to what extent the damage will be,” Avitia explained. “So we evacuate them until we’re sure the danger is gone. In this case, we evacuated a total of 19 people, and went ahead and let them back in about an hour later.”
Brush with homelessness
While the 19 residents likely weren’t happy about being woken up and forced to stand on the lawn in the wee small hours of the morning, Avitia said it could have been a whole lot worse and usually is.
“Normally, in fires like this, we end up having to cut the power off to the entire building — all eight apartments,” he said. “And when that happens, it stays off until the electric company can come out and check everything before they turn it back on again. So we could have easily displaced 19 people for a couple of days. That happens all the time. But because the sprinkler head kept the fire contained to one room and didn’t let it affect the wiring, everyone got to go back home right away.”
Everyone except two, that is. The Village at Avondale management relocated the residents of the apartment in which the fire occurred to another unit, where they’ll stay until repairs are made, Avitia said.
“Because the sprinkler head kept the fire contained to one room, there was very minimal damage,” he said. “But there was significant damage to the contents in there because of the smoke. The smoke saturated everything before the sprinkler head was activated, and that always causes significant damage to the clothing, the beds, pictures and stuff like that.”
The cost of repairing that damage has not yet been estimated, Avitia said.
The blaze occurred just more than four months after Avondale voters shot down Proposition 400, which would have made the installation of sprinkler systems mandatory in all new homes.
While stopping short of saying, “I told you so,” Avitia, a supporter of the proposed law, pointed to the avoided tragedy as a glowing example of the effectiveness of sprinkler systems.
“Imagine if that apartment complex didn’t have sprinkler heads,” he said. “The fire would have spread, and spread quickly, to the other apartments in that building. Without a doubt, there would have been a lot more property damage and possibly some injuries or deaths. It could have been a disaster.”
John Machay can be reached by e-mail
at jmachay@westvalleyview.com.
