Syracuse, NY -- Heat from two new generators was blamed for a late-night fire in part of Upstate University Hospital Thursday. Firefighters were alerted to a fire atop a five-story building next to the south wing of the hospital by a caller at the nearby Toomey Abbott Towers, said Deputy Fire Chief Jeffrey Daly. Arriving shortly before midnight, he said...
Syracuse, NY -- Heat from two new generators was blamed for a late-night fire in part of Upstate University Hospital Thursday.
Firefighters were alerted to a fire atop a five-story building next to the south wing of the hospital by a caller at the nearby Toomey Abbott Towers, said Deputy Fire Chief Jeffrey Daly.
Arriving shortly before midnight, he said the problem wasn’t readily visible from the street level. Using a ladder truck to reach the roof, firefighters quickly extinguished the fire on top of the building, but needed to use a chainsaw to get deeper into the roof, where the fire had been smoldering.
Daly said the hospital had tested out two new back-up electrical generators earlier in the day and that the heat from exhaust pipes apparently got the nearby roof hot enough to burn.
The generators, Daly said, had been through a five-hour test and shut down around 2 p.m., nearly 10 hours before residents at Toomey-Abbot high rise spotted flames. The fire had apparently been smoldering all that time.
No one was injured, and no patients were evacuated. While attached, the area that burned was separated from the hospital by brick wall, Daly said. The nearest section of the hospital is lab space, officials said.
Contact Charles McChesney at cmcchesney@syracuse.com.