Florida Firefighters To Inspect City's Apartment Attics

Firefighters in Sanford plan to inspect the attics in all of their city's older apartment buildings.

Investigators think several apartments at the Country Lakes complex could have been spared from burning Tuesday night if the attic firewalls had been better maintained, WESH 2 News reported.

No one was hurt in the blaze that gutted several units. Fire investigators said it started as a grease fire but spread out of control after the woman who was cooking made two failed attempts to put it out.

"Call 911 first. Then try to fight the fire if it's safe," said Fire Marshall Tim Robles.

Fortunately, the woman who was cooking and the two families living in the apartment with her decided to run and took the rest of the building's residents with them.

Fire investigators said another reason the fire spread so quickly across the top units of this building is that the firewalls in the attic were compromised.

Robles said in older apartments, it's common for the firewalls to have holes in them or even have sections removed to allow for new electrical and cable wiring.

"This hole here, this should have been totally filled and sealed with dry wall and appropriate caulking," he said, as he inspected the attic's ceiling.

Robles said it's not always the apartment community's maintenance workers who compromise the firewalls but independent contractors.

"They'll take a big section of it out and leave it, just like you see this piece of wood here, and then they don't put it back appropriately. Now you've got that big gaping hole where heat and smoke can travel horizontally to the other unit instead of confining it to the one unit," Robles said.

Sanford firefighters plan to step up their inspections of attic firewalls to prevent another disaster like this one.

Fire investigators said the management of the Country Lakes Apartments was cooperative and plans to inspect and repair any firewall compromises immediately.

The families left homeless Tuesday night are being helped by the Red Cross