Melissa Bailey Photo
A man left a coffee pot unattended Friday afternoon, sending smoke into the hallway — and sending a swarm of firefighters and cops onto a busy block outside the Hospital of St. Raphael.
It was one of several calls around town for firefighters on a busy Friday afternoon.
The action took place around 12:30 p.m. Friday, according to Acting Battalion Chief Miguel Rosado, the supervisor on the scene.
Rosado’s crew from Ellsworth Avenue arrived on the scene along with three other engines, a truck and an emergency paramedic unit. That’s the typical response for a so-called box-alarm fire, the lowest-level classification. They were summoned there after the fire alarm went off at 1411 Chapel St., a three-story residential building with retail at the street level, right across from St. Ray’s.
The building has three street-level stores: a Walgreens pharmacy, the Chinese restaurant Wok On In, and a hair-braiding salon.
Firefighters gained entrance to the residential part through the front door. In the hallway, they found “a visible haze” of smoke and the “odor of plastic burning.”
The smoke was contained to the first floor, he said. Firefighters knocked on doors there and told residents to leave.
A woman in one of the apartments said she was sleeping at the time.
“They came and knock my door, boom, boom, boom!” she said. “They said, ‘Fire department!’ I was so scared.”
She threw on a fur coat and ran outside along with her neighbors.
Firefighters identified the apartment where the smoke was coming from. It was locked, and no one was inside.
“We had to force the door,” said Rosado (pictured).
Inside, they found the offender — an electric coffee pot, sitting on the stove. The stove was off. The plastic insulation was burning. The device was plugged into the wall. It apparently started to burn because it got “overheated,” he said.
“We call it a case of unattended cooking,” or “careless cooking,” Rosado said — a common call.
Outside, firefighters had unfurled a hose and hooked it up to a fire hydrant, just in case. Cops blocked off the stretch of Chapel between Orchard and Sherman. By 1 p.m., it was all over and firefighters pulled away.
The coffee pot owner was out on the sidewalk when firefighters arrived, Rosado said — “I guess the door locked behind him.”
No one was injured and the fire didn’t spread, Rosado said.
Rosado was the last man remaining at the scene. He went in to check on the man in the apartment in case he needed medical attention.
And he put in a call to the management of 1411 Chapel Street LLC, to ask the company to fix the broken door.
Used Autos & Flames
Paul Bass Photo
A half-hour later, Rosada and his crew were across town at Kimberly Avenue near the Boulevard, where a one-alarm fire hit MackeyBoy Auto, a used-car sales and repair shop.
Four engine companies and a ladder truck unit in all were on the scene. Two of the crews made it there within 60 seconds, according to Rosada — because they happened to be participating in an exercise a block away at the fire training facility on the Boulevard.
Firefighter Cara Gould at the scene.
The fire started in a front office, according to Rosada. As cops closed off traffic on Kimberly, firefighters took “five to six minutes” to extinguish the flames, he said.
He said the fire was contained to the front office, which basically was gutted. But smoke was visible in the back. Firefighters went on the roof; then one firefighter stumbled. (The firefighter wasn’t injured.) It turned out the roof was in bad shape, apparently from a previous fire, according to Rosada, who called the crew down.
“This building structurally is in shambles,” Rosada said at the scene. “That’s from age, deterioration,” and the probable previous fire.
Rosada said at first glance the fire appeared to have started accidentally. The Fire Investigation Unit was on hand to start trying to figure out for sure.
Oven Fire
Firefighters responded to a third possible conflagration on Friday afternoon at the Michael Adanti Student Center at Southern Connecticut State University. It turned out to be “kind of a non-incident,” said Assistant Chief Ralph Black.
Food inside a cafeteria oven caught fire, Black said. The blaze was contained entirely inside the oven. No one was hurt.