PeteDuBaldo
Well-known member
I know BP had a thread about fire & safety with his car, but this just makes me want to reiterate.
To start the evening off on the right foot, I got out of the pharmacy at 7, and went over to Store #2 to jam with one of the guys for a bit. While I am there, I get a call on my cell "Pete, it's Dad. There is a small fire next-door and I'm evacuating inventory. The tenants are all out, everyone is safe, but the whole block is shut down" (Background info - On the location of DuBaldo Music Center, we share a building with 2 other businesses, and upstairs there are 3 apartments)
It turns out that the middle store had an electrical fire (ballast/old wiring) that brought in 4 fire trucks, enough police cruisers to shut down the block, and warranted an evac of all our high-end products before the firehoses came out.
Fortunately everyone was fine, and the damage was roughly contained to a 10x10 foot area on the ceiling of the comic book store next door to us. We did suffer minor damage to 2 sections of our ceiling where the FD went through to make sure the fire hadn't come across our wall.
Check the batteries in your smoke detectors, and make sure your fire extinguishers are fully charged. Make sure your electrical system is up to date! The only thing that saved the whole place from going up was the quick cutting of the power and usage of a fire extinguisher by the owner of the comic book store.
We are all VERY grateful that no-one was injured.
Fortunately (?) I will be at the music store full-time in just a few weeks, so that will give me plenty of time to go over the property and make sure everything is up to code.
Many of our high-end instruments (violins/accordions/EBs) were in the back room in boxes/cases while the entry level stuff was out front in the rooms that suffered slight damage. My father was able to safely & quickly evac most of them before I showed up - I don't know that they all made it out unscathed, we had a few on display out front that I haven't had the chance to inspect yet.
I will be buying another fire extinguisher for my place tomorrow morning.
To start the evening off on the right foot, I got out of the pharmacy at 7, and went over to Store #2 to jam with one of the guys for a bit. While I am there, I get a call on my cell "Pete, it's Dad. There is a small fire next-door and I'm evacuating inventory. The tenants are all out, everyone is safe, but the whole block is shut down" (Background info - On the location of DuBaldo Music Center, we share a building with 2 other businesses, and upstairs there are 3 apartments)
It turns out that the middle store had an electrical fire (ballast/old wiring) that brought in 4 fire trucks, enough police cruisers to shut down the block, and warranted an evac of all our high-end products before the firehoses came out.
Fortunately everyone was fine, and the damage was roughly contained to a 10x10 foot area on the ceiling of the comic book store next door to us. We did suffer minor damage to 2 sections of our ceiling where the FD went through to make sure the fire hadn't come across our wall.
Check the batteries in your smoke detectors, and make sure your fire extinguishers are fully charged. Make sure your electrical system is up to date! The only thing that saved the whole place from going up was the quick cutting of the power and usage of a fire extinguisher by the owner of the comic book store.
We are all VERY grateful that no-one was injured.
Fortunately (?) I will be at the music store full-time in just a few weeks, so that will give me plenty of time to go over the property and make sure everything is up to code.
Many of our high-end instruments (violins/accordions/EBs) were in the back room in boxes/cases while the entry level stuff was out front in the rooms that suffered slight damage. My father was able to safely & quickly evac most of them before I showed up - I don't know that they all made it out unscathed, we had a few on display out front that I haven't had the chance to inspect yet.
I will be buying another fire extinguisher for my place tomorrow morning.
