Dozens of residents of an Island Estates high-rise are evacuated in an incident that triggered fears of a nearby fatal fire in 2002.
By ROBERT FARLEY
Published January 7, 2004
CLEARWATER - When residents of the 12-story 51 Island Way condominium complex smelled smoke and saw fire engines Tuesday morning, two troubling words came to mind.
Dolphin Cove.
A fire in 2002 in the nearby Dolphin Cove condominium high-rise killed two elderly residents and badly burned three firefighters.
Tuesday's fire in a second-floor electrical room was not nearly as serious, though a maintenance worker suffered burns and dozens of residents were evacuated for several hours.
"With what happened at Dolphin Cove, it was very worrisome," said Rick Baker, 46, who lives on the 11th floor.
Fire officials, however, said that the fire was nothing like what happened at Dolphin Cove.
The fire started when the injured maintenance worker was using an acetylene torch, which apparently misfired and the flame went out of control, firefighters said.
About 50 firefighters from six fire departments were summoned to the scene, with the first firefighters arriving four minutes after the 9:42 a.m. call. It was doused quickly and confined to the electrical room.
But thick smoke filled the hallways of the lower floors, leaving many residents coughing as they evacuated down stairwells. One couple were taken down a ladder from their second-floor waterfront balcony to avoid the smoke.
The maintenance worker, whose name was not released by the fire department, was taken by ambulance to the hospital. Firefighters said he was not seriously injured. One other male resident had some respiratory problems and was administered oxygen by paramedics, but refused further treatment, a city spokeswoman said.
The building sustained very little damage, save two doors kicked in by firefighters to keep the fire floor clear. None of the residential units was damaged by smoke or water.
Sharon Woods, 45, was asleep in her eighth-floor condo when she heard a small boom, and thought little of it. Then a friend called her on the phone.
"The building's on fire! Get out!"
Woods went to the balcony, smelled the smoke and then hurried down a stairwell.
As she reached the lower floors, it became very smoky, she said. She suffers from emphysema and required some treatment from waiting paramedics.
"It's a bad way to start out the new year, but I'm thankful nobody was hurt too badly," Woods said.
Baker said he too was awakened by a neighbor's phone call.
As he fled downstairs, he encountered a powerful electrical odor around the fourth floor. It was strong enough that he could still feel a burn in his esophagus more than an hour later.
Fifty-one Island Way sits less than a quarter-mile away from the Dolphin Cove condominiums in Island Estates. A federal investigation of the Dolphin Cove fire determined that Clearwater firefighters violated several basic procedures in that deadly blaze.
The report, drafted by the U.S. Fire Administration and released in November, concludes Clearwater firefighters lacked leadership on the scene and ended up "freelancing." Despite facing a broken hydrant outside the building and a central water source inside that had been shut off, firefighters had plenty of water to extinguish the fire if only they had followed their own guidelines, according to the report.
Although Tuesday's fire occurred in a nearby condo high-rise, Clearwater Fire Training Chief Jeff Patterson downplayed comparisons between the two. Tuesday's fire was much smaller and was quickly put out.
The 51 Island Way complex was inspected by city officials just last month and everything was deemed in order, city spokesman Joelle Castelli said.
All fire hydrants and internal water sources worked properly, Patterson said. Unlike at Dolphin Cove, the call to firefighters came quickly. At Dolphin Cove, water was not put on the fire for about 28 minutes.
The Dolphin Cove fire was a "totally different incident," Patterson said.
Although the city stepped up its training procedures after the Dolphin Cove fire, none of the Dolphin Cove issues arose Tuesday, Patterson said.
But in Tuesday's fire, he said, "it was out very quickly."
Garrett Bell, 29, who lives on the second floor, said he didn't know there was a fire until he saw firefighters arriving. He walked into the hallway and was hit with a wall of thick smoke.
"It was incredible how much smoke there was," Bell said.
He quickly exited out the back stairs, coughing from the smoke.
Like Dolphin Cove, 51 Island Way has no sprinkler system, Bell said.
"That's been an issue since Dolphin Cove," Bell said.
Residents voted to put off the expensive undertaking after the Legislature last year allowed individual condo owners in older high-rises to avoid installing sprinklers in their units by a two-thirds vote.
"I think, after this, it'll come back up again," Bell said. "This was probably a good warning."
