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Letter to the editor

Bayfront residents evacuated

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN, CASEY CORA and LEONORA LAPETER ANTON
Published July 3, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG - A kitchen fire Monday morning forced the evacuation of residents at the downtown Bayfront Tower.

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.

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.

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 the building is where they ought to be, " said Mary Jones, 72, as she walked around the base of the building.

Some residents worried when they did not see 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.

Jones said she learned later that some of the unaccounted for elderly women were brought down by firemen and kept together in a lower level of the building.

Residents were allowed to return to their condos about 1 p.m.

"It smells in the hallway, but there's no severe smells in the units themselves, " Jones said Monday afternoon.

Fire officials had to shut down the air-conditioning system, because it was spreading smoke throughout the building.

One person was taken to Bayfront Medical Center with heat-related injuries.

[Last modified July 3, 2007, 00:28:54]