Rapid
City, S.D. – Fire
sprinkler protection helped to keep two recent Rapid City apartment fires
small, minimizing the damage sustained.
At around 2:00 pm on Sunday,
a fire was reported in a bedroom at the Palms Apartments in the 700 block of
Flormann Street. An occupant of the apartment that was at home at the time of
the fire escaped without injury. The fire was quickly confined to the mattress
and the room of origin by a single sprinkler head. Firefighters from Rapid City
Fire Station 4 completed extinguishment of the fire and ventilated the
building. The occupants of the affected apartment were temporarily displaced
while water and smoke was removed and until a new mattress could be obtained.
According to Larry Fuss,
owner of the property, the building in which the fire occurred has 20
apartments and is home to between 30 and 35 occupants. One occupant wrote in a
Facebook message to the Rapid City Fire Department that she lives in an
apartment in the building in which the fire occurred and that she is thankful
for the sprinkler system. “I work nights in healthcare and was asleep when this
happened”, she wrote. “I was awakened by fire fighters at my door evacuating us
from the building. If not for that sprinkler and the quick action of the first
responders this situation could have proven tragic.”
Fuss told the Rapid City Fire
Department that the building was remodeled and retrofitted with a sprinkler
system in 2012. Fuss is a strong advocate for fire sprinkler protection and
says that he encourages other property owners to install them in their
properties. “You can’t afford not to”, he said.
Just before 9:00 am on Monday
morning, a fire occurred at the Rapid Creek Apartments in the 1100 block of
Anamosa Street. Firefighters from Station 1 were dispatched to a report of an
automatic fire alarm in one of the buildings at that location. When
firefighters arrived, they found that a fire started in the bedroom of an
apartment and had been completely extinguished before they arrived. None of the
occupants of the apartment were injured. According to management at the Rapid
Creek Apartments, there are 15 apartments in the three-story building in which
the fire occurred. As many as 80 occupants live in the building. Before
firefighters left the scene, water removal efforts were well underway. It did
not appear as though the apartment’s occupants were going to be displaced as a
result of the fire and sprinkler activation.
In an effort to encourage
property owners to install fire sprinklers, the Rapid City Fire Department and
the City of Rapid City have joined forces to offer a loan program for the
installation of fire sprinklers. This low interest loan program, called the
Life Safety Loan, will support up to 80% of the eligible costs to retrofit
buildings with fire sprinkler protection. Those with interest in the program
can visit the City of Rapid City Finance Office at https://www.rcgov.org/departments/finance.html
Applications for the Life
Safety Loan can be downloaded at: https://www.rcgov.org/index.php?option=com_docman&view=download&alias=290-finance-life-safety-loan&category_slug=finance-department&Itemid=149
The Rapid City Fire
Department continues to advocate for the installation of fire sprinkler systems
as a means of protecting lives and property from fire. To learn more, visit our
website at https://www.rcgov.org/departments/fire-department/fire-and-life-safety.html.
For questions or comment
related to this release, please contact Lt. Jim Bussell, Public information
Officer for the Rapid City Fire Department, at 605-394-4180.
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