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Sally Froese sat her 18 kindergarteners down in Room 218 at Mill Creek Elementary School to watch an art movie yesterday afternoon. Then she noticed water dripping from the ceiling.

Froese moved a desk and that student, said Battalion Chief Steve Sapp of the Columbia Fire Department. Then the drip grew, and the teacher moved more desks.

But the drips turned into a torrent of water that poured from the ceiling of the art room, ruining several art projects. Eventually the water was several inches deep on the floor of the kindergarten classroom and a hallway.

No children were hurt, Sapp said.

“They got out of there before it started gushing,” Mill Creek Principal Mary Sue Gibson said.

The leak occurred after a pipe in the fire sprinkler system froze and burst, Sapp said. Water dripped and then poured through a sprinkler head in the drywall ceiling of the art room.

The school

Fire officials are calling this morning’s fire in the Wilsonville Rite Aid an object lesson in the benefits of installing fire-suppression systems in all new construction.

Cassandra Ulven, spokeswoman for Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue, said firefighters were called to the drugstore at 8235 S.W. Wilsonville Road at 7:05 a.m., after employees noticed smoke inside the building.

Firefighters, arriving within four minutes, found a small fire burning in a work room next to the pharmacy. A single sprinkler head kept the fire from growing. A single fire crew was able quickly to extinguish the fire.

“Without a fire sprinkler system, this fire could have grown much larger, potentially injuring occupants and causing a lot more damage to the building and contents,” Ulven said. “While fire sprinkler systems are required in commercial buildings, it is still illustrative of the benefits a fire sprinkler system can provide to any building, including a single-family home.”

Firefighters shut off the sprinkler system, made sure the fire hadn’t spread, then helped to salvage items affected by the fire.

No injuries were reported. Cause of the fire was accidental, Ulven said. A damage estimate was not yet available.
– Rick Bella; rickbella@news.oregonian.com

The Madisonville Fire Department had a busy weekend responding to several calls in the city.

Auburn Elementary School reopened as scheduled this morning with only a faint odor of soot as evidence that an electrical fire damaged the central office area early Friday morning.

The reopening

The keys in the Knox box are lined up, complete with instructions.

Should a fire develop at a local school, firefighters can access the box to get into the school within minutes, without breaking windows. The key box is one small component of a large, complex safety system that is designed to keep students out of harm

Fire sprinklers are credited with dousing an early morning fire Tuesday at a Marysville pet store.

A few fish were killed in the blaze, but otherwise the sprinkler system worked and saved the rest of the animals at Jones & Co. Pet Store on State Avenue at 76th Street NE, Marysville Fire District spokeswoman Kristen Thorstenson said.

Crews were called around 5:30 a.m. to reports of a roof collapse, she said. When firefighters arrived they instead found the retail store full of smoke.

There had been a fire in the back room that sprinklers extinguished.

“Although there was water damage, had the sprinkler system not been there, the animals and building most likely would have been a total loss,”

Would you pay $4,000 for a fire sprinkler system in your home?

Don Hoye wouldn’t.

“I don’t think it’s necessary,” said Hoye, a real estate agent who moved his family into a new home in Bayport two years ago.

He said his family would get ample warning of a fire from the required hard-wired smoke detectors. Sprinklers, he said, are “another expense being pushed down the throats of consumers.”

The public might not like the idea, but a proposal to require sprinklers in all new single-family homes and duplexes in Minnesota is gaining momentum. The sprinklers would go into every room in a house

An early morning fire Friday in the Capital Newspapers building in Madison caused approximately $52,000 in damage before an automated sprinkler system extinguished the flames.

Jerry Simpkins, production director for Capital Newspapers — which publishes six daily papers, including the Wisconsin State Journal — said the fire started in a compressor in a mechanical room at about 2:50 a.m.

Production assistant Peter McKercher said an employee noticed smoke coming from the room and pulled a fire alarm. The automatic sprinkler system engaged shortly thereafter.

Madison Fire Department spokesman Eric Dahl said employees were leaving the building, 1901 Fish Hatchery Road, when firefighters arrived, and sprinklers had extinguished the fire by the time they reached the mechanical room.

McKercher said between 40 and 50 people were working inside at the time of the fire. No one was injured.

Dahl said investigators did not know what caused the compressor to catch fire but believe it was not set intentionally.

McKercher said the compressor, one of four in the mechanical room, was about 25 years old. Another compressor was damaged by water but is repairable, he said.

McKercher said the temporary loss of two compressors would not hurt production at the facility.

nvestigators say the sprinkler system helped contain a fire at a Boone County, Kentucky laundry cleaning company early Tuesday morning.

The fire started just before 1:30 a.m. at the AmeriPride Linen and Apparel Service on Industrial Road, just outside of Florence.

Officials say the blaze broke out in a machine used to lift laundry baskets of clean clothes to employees who fold them.

The flames spread to much of the clothes, but the sprinkler system quickly contained the fire until crews arrived on the scene.

There were no employees there at the time and no one was injured.

The National Fire Sprinkler Association and the International Association of Fire Chiefs have released the second edition of “Residential Fire Sprinklers: A Step-By-Step Approach for Communities,” as well as an updated companion CD/DVD set, “Look Up For Safety.” These are designed to assist fire service and community leaders in implementing fire sprinkler mandates. The updated resources build on the original editions, which were released in 2001, and are available at www.iafc.org/flss or www.nfsa.org.

The revised guide brings the latest information together for community leaders who wish to pass fire sprinkler legislation or adopt a national code that includes fire sprinklers. Success stories are shared from communities nationwide that highlight specific steps and how-to advice from those who have gone before.