Auburn Senior Tower Fire: Sprinklers Win, Water Displaces 76

A cooking fire on the sixth floor of an Auburn, Maine, apartment tower for older and disabled residents was extinguished quickly by the building's sprinkler system on Sunday, Oct. 25. The water that put out the flames also soaked neighboring apartments and units on lower floors, and dozens of residents spent the night away from home.

What happened

The Auburn Fire Department says the alarm came in at 4:29 p.m. to the Lake Auburn Towne House at 74 Lake Auburn Avenue, next to Washburn Elementary School. Crews found that a burner on a stove in a sixth-floor apartment had ignited and that the automatic sprinklers had already controlled it. The department listed the incident as finished at 10:37 p.m., after hours of ventilation and checks of the water-affected floors.

Residents were moved out as a precaution and gathered at Washburn Elementary, across the street. No injuries were reported.

The building and the people in it

The Towne House is public housing owned by the Auburn Housing Authority. It has six stories and 86 apartments, 32 of them efficiencies and 54 one-bedrooms, and it serves people 62 and older and people with disabilities. Many tenants in a building like this have limited mobility or health needs, which makes even a short loss of access to home, medication and belongings harder to manage.

Displacement and the Red Cross response

By about 10:30 p.m., two wings had been judged safe and many residents went back to their apartments. The fire department says 42 units could not be occupied that night because of the water damage. At the city's request, the Red Cross opened an emergency shelter at the Auburn Drop-In Center on Mill Street around 11 p.m., with eight disaster volunteers on hand. Red Cross officials told WMTW that 76 people were initially displaced, that many returned or found other places to stay, and that about 18 could not arrange housing on their own.

The fire department's own account is lower: it says the shelter provided overnight accommodations to 12 residents and has since closed. The two figures describe different things, and officials have not explained the gap, so treat both as approximate. Red Cross executive director Sophie Piconi called losing access to a home with no warning "incredibly stressful."

Where things stand

As of Monday, the fire department reports that all but 10 units had been cleared for occupancy. The Auburn Housing Authority is relocating residents of those 10 apartments into other units it manages, and the fire department worked with the authority to line up temporary housing. Residents who need help can reach the Red Cross at 1-800-733-2767.

What this means for renters

The sprinklers did exactly what they are built to do: they stopped a fire on one floor from becoming a building-wide disaster, with no reported injuries. The trade-off is water, and water damage is what forces people out. A few practical points for tenants in any sprinklered building:

• Keep renters insurance. A policy with loss-of-use coverage can pay for lodging while your unit dries out, and personal-property coverage handles damaged belongings. Public-housing tenants are often assumed to be covered by the landlord's policy, which generally protects the building, not your things.
• Photograph your unit and belongings now, so a claim after a water event is easier to document.
• Keep a go-bag with medications, ID, chargers and a list of key phone numbers, especially if you have mobility or health needs.
• Never leave cooking unattended. Stovetop fires are among the most common causes of apartment fires.
• Ask your property manager how displaced residents are rehoused after an emergency, and who to call.

For what to do in the first days after losing access to your home, see our first-72-hours checklist for tenants.