Bayfront residents evacuated
By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN, CASEY CORA and LEONORA LAPETER
Published July 2, 2007
ST. PETERSBURG - A kitchen fire this morning forced the evacuation of residents at the downtown Bayfront Tower. All residents were allowed to return at 1 p.m.
Nearly 75 people were evacuated after fire broke out about 10 a.m. in the kitchen of a 27th-floor condominium, said Assistant Chief William Jolley of St. Petersburg Fire Rescue. He said the fire began after a resident turned on the self-cleaning mode of a 3-month old oven.
"When the alarm went off I didn't take it seriously so I don't have anything with me, although I did take the dogs, " said Rosemary Zava, 47, as she walked her two Westies, Radar and Dusty, outside the building two hours later.
Zava said all of the residents had to walk down flights of stairs on either end of the building and it was hard for some of the elderly residents.
"It was very difficult for them to go down the steps, " said Zava who lives on the 12th floor. "One elderly lady on our floor who was wheelchair-bound, a fireman had to carry her over his shoulder down 12 flights of stairs."
Zava and other residents were attempting to make sure none had been left inside the building.
"We're taking a nose count to see that whoever was in building is where they ought to be, " said Mary Jones, 72, as she walked around the base of the building.
Some residents were worried, Zava said, because they had not seen two elderly women in their 90s outside in either the park across the street or in the air-conditioned buses that fire officials brought to provide shelter from the heat.
"We think they stayed in the building, " Zava said. "This is a problem. We're going to have to deal with the evacuation of the elderly."
Residents had to wait a few hours to return to their units while firefighters removed smoke from the hallways.
"It smells in the hallway but there’s no severe smells in the units themselves,” said Jones Monday afternoon.
Jones said she learned that some of the unaccounted for elderly women were brought down by firemen and kept together in a lower level of the building.
The fire, which brought out nearly 26 fire engines and nearly twice as many fire personnel to the building at One Beach Drive SE, was extinguished with a water hose. It did not spread to any other condominiums and damage was limited to the kitchen in which it started.
Residents wiled away the time in the air conditioning of the two PSTA buses used to get the evacuated residents out of the heat of the day.
One person was taken to Bayfront Medical Center with heat-related injuries. Another resident tripped while walking down the stairs, though no medical treatment was required.