Capital City Fire/Rescue responded to a commercial structure fire at approximately 8:50 p.m. on Tuesday night in the 1000 block of Harbor Way for a general fire alarm activation at a commercial building.
According to a CCFR social media post, fire personnel reached the scene within four minutes of the building’s smoke alarm going off, and crews reported smoke and flames visible from the second floor of a U.S. Fish & Wildlife research building. CCFR Assistant Chief Ed Quinto said it was later determined that those flames were coming through the smoke stack from the furnace room.
“The initial crew was able to force their way through the metal door and into the second floor where the furnace was located,” Quinto said. “Our crews encountered smoke and also fire around and inside the furnace on the second floor. They did a quick knock down of the fire and we investigated and checked for extension of the fire inside the building.”
Quinto said a fire origin and cause investigation began immediately and the cause of the fire was a failure of the heating unit fuel pump on the second floor furnace unit. Damage is estimated at approximately $20,000. There was one firefighter injured but did not need medical attention.
In a social media post, CCFR reminded residents to be sure that heating appliances are in proper working condition and to have only qualified service technicians conduct work on heating systems. Also, be sure that smoke alarms are operational. According to Quinto, had the building fire alarm system not activated, it’s unknown how far the fire would have progressed in the unoccupied structure before it would have been called in by bystanders.
“It was determined there was limited damage due to the quick action of the fire alarm and the quick knockdown by our crew,” Quinto said. “We were able to have the response team take over the building and protect everything. They will need to replace the heating unit since it was damaged inside and outside, but everything else in the content of that building was pretty much saved.”
• Contact reporter Jonson Kuhn at jonson.kuhn@juneauempire.com.
