Condo fire kills 1, hurts 7 as crews seek water

Inside, residents say they couldn't get fire hoses to work, and outside, a broken hydrant delays firefighters. The Clearwater blaze displaces 150.

[Times photo: Jim Damaske] Residents waved and screamed from their windows. Firefighters rescued some from balconies; others were rescued from inside.

By ADRIENNE P. SAMUELS, JENNIFER FARRELL and AARON SHAROCKMAN
© St. Petersburg Times
published June 29, 2002

CLEARWATER -- Standing on a cherry picker, the two firefighters readied their hose and took dead aim at the flames raging in a condominium less than 30 feet away.

Nothing came out.

Inside the burning building, two residents ran wildly down the fifth-floor hallway, uncoiled an emergency water hose and pointed.

Again, nothing.

Within minutes, a stove-top kitchen fire in Unit 501 at the Dolphin Cove condominiums grew into a crackling inferno that killed one man, injured five firefighters and two residents and displaced 150 people.

Hindered by a broken hydrant nearest the blaze, firefighters hooked into a working hydrant on the far side of the building. As the fire reached 1,000 degrees -- so hot it melted helmets and oxygen tanks -- they rushed in.

In a scene that horrified some residents, many elderly people waved from windows and balconies, screaming for help, while other residents stood in the street wearing little more than socks and T-shirts.

Firefighters swung by in tall ladders, plucking people from balconies. Inside the flaming building other rescuers slung residents onto their shoulders and marched them down smoke-filled stairs.

"One firefighter kept yelling, 'Give me water, give me water,"' said Don Jones, who lives on the fifth floor. "They just abandoned the fire and concentrated on getting people down. It just burned and burned."

Several witnesses said as much as 30 minutes passed before firefighters connected a hose to a working hydrant about a block away and aimed water at the front window of the burning condo. By then, the fire lit up the street, with flames jumping four stories above the original blaze.

"That fire built and built and built and got worse and worse, and they didn't put water on it at all," said Gabe Ayala, who lives next door in the Village on Island Estates townhomes.

Top city officials pledged to find out what happened to the broken hydrant. Fire officials gave conflicting statements about why residents couldn't get water from the building's internal fire hoses.

The fire might have been suppressed sooner, onlookers said, if the building had had sprinklers, if the condo's interior water hose system had been turned on at the outset of the blaze and if firefighters had been able to get water from the first hydrant.

"Firefighters without water ... they are as good as gone," said Clearwater fire inspector Duanne Anderson. "It all went south from there."

The fire began in the kitchen of Charles Zetterberg's fifth-floor home, fire officials said.

Zetterberg said he was awakened about 5 a.m. by the sound of crackling. He got up, saw flames and decided to smother them with a towel. He changed his mind as smoke and heat filled the kitchen. He awoke his daughter, Megan, who ran to the condo next door to awaken her grandmother, Jean Zetterberg.

Charles Zetterberg and another fifth-floor resident, Ronnie Roberts, grabbed six fire extinguishers and tried to put the fire out. When the smoke grew thicker, they tried four fire hoses. Each time, only a trickle of water came out.

Firefighters were called to the scene about 5:20 a.m. and arrived in five minutes. Roberts and Zetterberg tried to help them evacuate residents.

For the moment, Zetterberg's mother, Jean, was overlooked.

Zetterberg, who assumed his mother was safe, looked up and saw her waving from the balcony, yelling.

"I know she was waiting for me," he said of his 81-year-old mother.

Firefighters on a cherry picker broke a fifth-floor window and rushed inside, where they found Jean Zetterberg badly burned.

She was on life support in the burn unit of Tampa General Hospital late Friday. Her son said the family is not optimistic.

Firefighters found the body of Robert Kelly, 75, a resident of Unit 506, in a fifth-floor hallway. Police said they believe his death was caused by the fire, although they did not rule out a heart attack. An autopsy will be scheduled.

Some said the building was not prepared for a fire.

"I always knew there was no evacuation plan, no sprinkler system," said a bleary-eyed Cynthia Holloway, a caretaker for a fifth-floor resident. "Oh my God, how can this happen?"

The cause of the fire and the broken hydrant were under investigation. Officials are also looking into whether pipe providing water to the building's interior water hose system was turned off, preventing residents from dousing the flames before firefighters arrived.

Fire officials on Friday gave conflicting statements about the reasons the interior hose system was without water. Anderson, the fire inspector, said a key water pipe had been turned off at the source. Assistant Fire Chief Charlie Flowers said the system inside the building was fully functional, and he said residents may not have known how to activate the hoses.

Ronnie Roberts disputes that theory.

"If that hose would've worked, I could have had it out ... unless I'm stupid," he said.

The 11-story Dolphin Cove building was built in 1974, about a decade before Florida building codes mandated sprinkler systems. Florida law now requires many older buildings to install sprinklers within 12 years. Dolphin Cove homeowners started that process early this year by seeking a sprinkler installer, said Jeffrey Greenacre, president of the building's management firm.

In January, fire inspectors visited the building and noted several minor violations, including an expired fire pump inspection tag. A month later, inspectors found the building fully compliant.

The broken hydrant, to the south and east of the building, was tested and found in good condition this year, officials said. No one knew what happened to it on Friday morning, but Flowers said it's not uncommon for them to malfunction.

"They're mechanical," Flowers said. "That's why hydrants are every 500 feet apart."

The city is vowing to do something about it.

Said Assistant City Manager Garry Brumback: "We're going to find out what caused it and we're going to fix it."

-- Times staff writer Leon M. Tucker contributed to this report. Adrienne Samuels can be reached at 445-4157 or samuels@sptimes.com.

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