Wednesday, November 30, 2011

My First Major View Towers Fire


This is an expansion of a section of previous post detailing happenings at View Towers

There was a period where there the fire alarm was being pulled a lot.  Apparently the person responsible moved away, got evicted, or possibly died because they eventually stopped, but at the time they were pretty common. So when the fire alarm went off, I did go out but I wasn’t too concerned.

Much to my surprise this time the fire and smoke were quite noticeable, coming from the 12th floor. Despite this many people were content to remain in the building and watch, including one guy whose balcony was being licking by the flames (I think he eventually got around to leaving).  This detail even made the news, which hasn’t dissuaded tenants from remaining in the building during subsequent fire arms. The flames went up I think three stories and a bit to the left.

Subsequent fires did less damage, but in this instance the tenant in the burning room left the door open upon vacating, allowing the fire to spread. I’ve heard that the fire was caused by lit drug paraphernalia but I don’t know for sure.

Another source of damage was actually the fire hoses, which had so many that they caused a lot of water damage.

The aftermath: they exterior of the burnt room was black for a while after. For a very short time the elevators were out of commission. The entrance to the 12 was blackened.  Most or all the carpet on that floor’s hall had to be replaced.

And… tenants got a notice saying that the fire hoses were being replaced for our safety. I still have that notice somewhere.

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