Oak Ridge Fire Department firefighter and paramedic Robert Burk, right, evacuates Jean Rivera, a resident of the six-story Frank Callaghan Towers on Fairbanks Road after a small fire on Thursday afternoon. Burk is carrying Rivera’s dog Taco. Rivera, who can’t walk steps, said firefighters practically had to carry her downstairs. “I’m shook up,” she said. “I’m nervous.”
About 50 residents were evacuated and one person was treated for smoke inhalation after a small fire was reported in an apartment at Frank Callaghan Towers on Thursday afternoon, authorities said.
The fire appears to have been caused by an electrical short at an outlet in a second-floor apartment on the northwest side of the building, Oak Ridge Fire Department Chief Darryl Kerley said.
A clothes hamper full of clothes ignited, and the fire burned the side of an entertainment center, two lamps, and materials around a window, Kerley said.
“It was a fairly small fire, but it generated a lot of black smoke,” he said. The first three floors of the six-story building were evacuated, and two cats were rescued from the apartment that burned. The apartment resident was not at home at the time.
Oak Ridge Fire Department Captain Eric Rackard, upper right, talks to an Anderson County EMS employee from the second floor of Callaghan Towers. The EMS worker apparently struggles to hear Rackard over the sound of loud smoke-clearing machinery stationed nearby.
The man who was treated for smoke inhalation is a second-floor resident, Kerley said. The man was not taken to the hospital.
The fire was reported at 1:50 p.m. Thursday. Kerley said firefighters extinguished it in about four to five minutes using a hotel pack carried to the second floor. A hotel pack is 100 feet of pre-bundled hose that firefighters can carry up steps and connect to fire-fighting “stand pipes” within a building to battle blazes.
Kerley said the damage from Thursday’s fire, including cleanup and the cost of repainting walls, could total $5,000. The resident might have lost $1,000 worth of personal property, he said.
But firefighters also take note of their savings. In this case, they prevented additional damage to the $2.5 million building, Kerley said.
The one unit that burned Thursday will have to be remodeled before the resident can move back in.
Kerley said Callaghan Towers residents on the fourth to sixth floors did not have to be evacuated.
Firefighters checked the building’s carbon dioxide and oxygen levels before letting residents of the first three floors back in.
A few residents who use motorized wheelchairs were sheltered in stairwells with firefighters. The fire department would prefer that those residents live on the first floor, but there aren’t enough rooms for them all, Kerley said.
Callaghan Towers is an income-based apartment complex for residents 62 years old and older, and those who are handicapped or disabled.
Kerley said every unit the Fire Department owns responded yesterday, except for an ambulance at East Tennessee Technology Park, the former K-25 site. There were 22 firefighters at the fire, four engines, the tower truck, two rescue trucks, and three chiefs, he said.
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