Car Fire: Highland Ave @ Conwell St.

[haptotrope.livejournal.com]

Fire: or rather cars on fire and exploding under the lofted concrete apartment building (270 Highland Ave). About 6 firetrucks, and all manners of Somerville/Medford Responding.

Woke up at a little before 2am to smashing of windows and general mayhem, and looked out the window and saw flames reflected in the house across the street. Heard more explosions, and called 911, ran outside, and saw the cars on fire in the parking lot under the building overhang. Still more explosions as the firefighters worked to put out the fires. It looked as if some part of the building lobby may have caught fire, or it could have just been flaming debris obscured by smoke.

There were reports of someone fleeing the scene, running down Highland towards Porter St., but other observers, noted he was just watching the fire, and bolted when the car started exploding.

The fire has been put out and people are loitering around in their pajamas... Nobody seemed to be hurt - The Cataldo Ambulance crew and gurney were unused at present observation. News cameras are present -- so we'll probably see this with more details on the TV tomorrow.

Comments

Engineer here

[http://users.livejournal.com/_mattt/]

The code you mentioned states that the smoke detectors in the apartment need to be on the same electrical system as the building smoke detectors. It does not appear to state that triggering of the common area smoke alarm triggers individual apartment smoke alarms, although it does appear to imply visa versa.

Regardless, I would encourage anyone in this building (or any other) to double check witht he SFD that their building passed the last fire inspection. Moreover, older structures are often times not governed by newer codes grandfathered in).