Automatic fire alarms are cause for multiple alerts every day to Butler County Emergency Services, and they are usually single alarms that don’t warrant a full staff fire department response.

But on Wednesday night, July 2, the Adams Area Fire District responded to an automatic fire alarm call that helped prevent disaster before it fully took hold of a building on Fey Lane in Adams Township. According to Talo Capuzzi, chief of the Adams Area Fire District, a 55-gallon drum overheated and was smoking which, if left unchecked, threatened to engulf the structure in flames.

Emergency crews removed the drum from the building and sprayed it down before the contents of the drum could ignite and cause a fire.

So while the emergency had not necessarily happened yet, firefighters went to the scene as if it required a full response, calling in a hazmat unit once they found smoke billowing from the Lectromat building. It was the responsible thing to do.

While some calls from automatic fire alarms may not require a full-fledged response and the summoning of a hazmat unit, they alert emergency service departments to a potential emergency before one truly takes hold. That’s why Pennsylvania state code requires an automatic fire alarm system to be installed in apartments that have only one way in and out.

“It could have been a lot worse,” Capuzzi said. “Had they not had a fire alarm, it would have accelerated to the point that it did catch fire. Their alarm system did save them from having a catastrophic event.”

Even if you don’t run have a business involving chemicals, make sure you check your smoke detector batteries regularly, especially if you have a things that could undergo a chemical reaction and ignite around your house.

— ET