CRC Fire in Albuquerque Update and Video: HVAC unit blamed for Broadway fire

Posted on Jun 30, 2010 in Records Management News

KOB-TV News — Kayla Ander­son, Eye­wit­ness News 4; Taryn Bianchin, KOB.com

The Albu­querque Fire Depart­ment has announced the cause of a huge fire at a down­town busi­ness com­plex last Wednesday.

Inves­ti­ga­tors say the fire was sparked by a faulty rooftop air con­di­tioner on the south end of the build­ing and was aided by the evening’s high winds, even­tu­ally caus­ing about $10 mil­lion in damage.

As the fire con­tin­ues to smol­der six days later, fire­fight­ers remain at the com­plex vig­i­lant over flare-ups. The Albu­querque Fire Depart­ment calls it the biggest fire in recent memory.

“The tar caught on fire and was drip­ping tar balls from the roof into the occu­pancy,” said Albu­querque Fire Depart­ment Chief James Breen.

As numer­ous fires started inside the build­ing, the great­est dam­age was inside TMM Busi­ness Records Stor­age. The busi­ness had high racks full of med­ical records which quickly caught fire. What didn’t burn is wet and weigh­ing down the stor­age racks. Fire­fight­ers are wor­ried the racks will col­lapse, so they still can’t go inside.

“It’s not safe to put fire­fight­ers on the inside. As a result of that, we can’t actu­ally access some of the smol­der­ing mate­r­ial that’s deep inside the struc­ture,” Breen said. He says the Albu­querque Fire Depart­ment called in fed­eral agents to find out where the fire began and what sparked it.

“From inter­views, from eye­wit­nesses, from the 911 call, from the first respon­ders– which would be the fire depart­ment actu­ally arriv­ing– the scene itself, all these fac­tors come together,” explained Jake Gon­za­les, with the Albu­querque office of the ATF. He says they deter­mined the fire started on the roof, with the heat­ing ven­ti­la­tion and cool­ing unit. The unit was last inspected in April and got a clean report.

It’s esti­mated the fire cost the city hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. The city is now work­ing with the owner of the build­ing to get the med­ical records out. Even though they’re wet, offi­cials believe they can be sal­vaged. They hope to reach an agree­ment on how to save the records by

Watch the Video and read more here …

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1630698.shtml?cat=500

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