What the heck is with all these apartment and house fires? (Atlanta: low income, apartments)

[neil0311]

I asked this question a year or so ago, and I'll ask it again, especially in the context of the cuts in fire services in the City of Atlanta. WTF is going on with the constant parade of apartment and house fires? I have never seen anything like it, even when I lived in the Atlanta area before, this kind of nightly house or apartment fire didn't happen. In the Boston area you might see the occasional house fire, but not one or two a night.

What is going on to cause this? Are people lighting campfires in their living rooms? Are they using the stove for heat and forgetting to turn it off? Smoking in bed and falling asleep? Why does this phenomenon seem to occur in low income neighborhoods?

[bayarea-girl]

neil0311, this is a funny post and you know what you have a valid question. People must be smoking in bed, growing something they shouldn't which causes huge firers, or leaving the food on the stove? I know that the old knob electrical system was used and is still used in the older developments, that might be causing some of the fires??

[atlantagreg30127]

I lived in apartments throughout the metro area from 1984 through 1995, and can vouch that it was a rare event to see apartment fires during that time frame. These days it's pretty much at least one per night on one of the news stations.

Possible reasons:

1) The older, much more solidly built apartments (brick with concrete fire walls in-between each unit) have been torn down to make way for newer, much more cheaply built units that use "fire-retarding" sheet rock in-between units instead of concrete. As a result, in the old days when a place caught on fire and it was contained to that one unit, now, in a matter of minutes half a building will go up, so, it makes the news more frequently. ** note ** this is a good reason to make SURE if you're buying a condo that it's not a "conversion" (apartment that was converted into condos) - as the fire safety features may be substandard if they were once apartments.

2) More apartments. Since the mid-80s, Atlanta's metro population has doubled. There are more apartments, hence, more apartment fires.

3) There are many more immigrants moving here into apartments than there were 15-25 years ago. They bring varying lifestyles with them, including an odd habit of leaving food cooking on stoves unattended, which is the number 1 cause in some areas of these fires. I can't imagine why one would want an enchilada at 3am, only to go into the living room and fall asleep on the sofa while it's cooking, but it's happening much more.

4) More kids in apartments: In the mid-80s, "Adult only" complexes were still legal. Lots of them had restrictions on kids, either keeping families with kids in a particular family area while the rest was adults only, or, the entire complex was adults only. A Federal lawsuit put an end to that a few years later, so today, kids.... kids who like to play with matches and lighters.... live in all complexes. Merge this with # 3 above (an increase in immigrants moving to the area, many times with multiple kids in tow), and the fire risk increases significantly due to kids playing with fire/matches/stoves, etc etc.


Either way, if you have to live in an apartment these days here, you should follow a few rules...

First, get renter's insurance to cover your stuff (it's like $20 a month). Second, if you have pets, crate (cage) them while you're at work and let the office know where they're at so they can be rescued easily in case of fire if you're not home. Also, regularly back up the date on your home computer (photos, videos, scans of important documents, etc) and keep that back up on a portable hard drive or DVDs, OFF SITE, at work, or in a safety deposit box at the bank. You may lose a computer in a fire, but all of your digital "stuff" will be safe.

And last and most important - USE YOUR BRAINS as tenants; don't cook when you're sleepy. Make sure things are turned OFF when you leave for work or the weekend. Don't leave a grill unattended on the deck. Don't leave things out where the kids can find/play with them to start fires... etc etc.. Use common sense. It's not just your stuff that's at risk if you do something stupid, and property lawsuits can be filed against you if you cause a fire that causes lots of others to lose their stuff.

[neil0311]

I was watching Fox 5 News and coincidentally they did a piece on the rash of fires in Dekalb County. My gut wasn't wrong. The Dekalb Fire Chief said that things have "gotten out of control" and the number of fatalities this year in Dekalb has already surpassed all of 2008. The Chief blames it on cooking in the kitchen. People cook elsewhere too, so why is it such a bad problem in Atlanta? Greg, you make some good points, but many of those are valid in places like Boston and NY, and just don't recall the same number of fires on a daily basis.

myfoxatlanta.com | DeKalb Fire Chief Comments on Fires (http://www.myfoxatlanta.com/dpp/news/DeKalb_Fire_Chief_Comments_on_Fires_022309 - broken link)

[rcsteiner]

Originally Posted by atlantagreg30127

First, get renter's insurance to cover your stuff (it's like $20 a month).

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do this!!!!

I have a very good friend who lost everything to an apartment fire maybe 20 years ago, and he didn't have insurance. We had no idea he didn't have it, and he had no idea how inexpensive it really was to get comprehensive coverage. It would have saved him a LOT of grief...

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by neil0311

Greg, you make some good points, but many of those are valid in places like Boston and NY, and just don't recall the same number of fires on a daily basis.

In places like NYC and Boston, you still have lots of those old brick and stone apartment buildings. They contain fires better in-between each unit than cheaply made plywood/sheetrock new units like you see here.

Observe, most all of the severe apartment fires you see happen here are in those wood framed "newer" apartment buildings. How often do you hear of one of the older intown brick/stone apartment buildings going up in flames like that? We just have fewer of the older more solid ones left than Northeastern cities.

[PKCorey]

Yes, this seems to be an issue in ATL.

That's my biggest fear of living in an apartment here.

I rather just rent a house cause it seems every minute an apartment building is going up in flames here...