Smoke causes evacuation
BROWNSVILLE – It wasn’t much of a fire, but smoke in a downtown apartment building Friday managed to tie up traffic for parts of the morning and early afternoon. The first call came in at 9:38 a.m. for smoke in the Brownsville Apartments at 100 High St. According to the building manager, Bob Arthurs, some rags caught fire as workers were cutting metal with a torch, creating the smoke.
“They were demolishing the existing office. Some of the old structure was metalwork they had to remove,” said Arthurs. “A spark started rags to smolder.”
Five fire departments responded to the call, since it involved an apartment building, South Browns-ville Fire Chief Edward “Woody” Nicholson said. Assisting his department were the Brownsville No. 1 (North Side), Hiller, West Brownsville and California volunteer fire departments.
Traffic was detoured onto Water Street in the morning, since High Street was blocked by emergency vehicles. The detour was a bit more complicated when the crews went back at 12:35 p.m. with smoke ejectors to help remove the odor from the building.
Although Nicholson said he called for a non-emergency response, which would have included only the South Brownsville department, all five departments were called out again. Two of the departments were around the back of the building, blocking Water Street and High Street.
Bob Sunny of the Fayette County Special Fire Police said that with the two main routes to the Upper South Side and Hiller blocked, motorists had to detour back through town, across the Lane-Bane Bridge, through West Brownsville and back into Brownsville on the Inter-County Bridge. Drivers more familiar with the back roads of Brownsville also could have detoured using Jackson Street to Mill Street, coming out on Angle Street at the top of High Street hill. The emergency vehicles remained on the scene until around 1:15 p.m. for the smoke ejection call.
Arthurs complimented the departments on their coordinated response. “It was really fortunate that they responded so well. This is a large building, and there are a lot of people in it. To have such a large team coordinated is really a service to the community,” Arthur said.
The six-story building contains about 45 apartments. Nicholson said the building was evacuated for the first call, but there was no need to evacuate it the second time crews responded.