READING, Pa.- Reading\u2019s fire marshal says the arsons at the former Lincoln Chemical building are part of a much larger, and dangerous, pattern in the city.<\/p>\n
Fire Marshal Jeremy Searfoss says the two fires in 2023 at 600 South 9th Street were both intentionally set. But he says the damage was far worse because the building\u2019s sprinkler and alarm systems were not working.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the sprinkler and fire alarm were maintained and operating properly, both fires would have been quickly extinguished, resulting in minimal damage,\u201d Searfoss said.<\/p>\n
He also noted this issue isn\u2019t unique to that location.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, this is not a new phenomenon with fires that occur in buildings where the sprinkler system is shut off. We typically refer to these buildings as an attractive nuisance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Searfoss pointed to several major fires in Reading in recent years, all in buildings with non-working sprinkler systems:<\/p>\n
702 North 8th Street (2014): More than $10 million in damage.213 South 11th Street (2017): Sprinkler system inoperable; building later demolished.500 North 3rd Street (2017): Multiple fires; structure remains partially demolished.210 Maple Street (2021): Intentionally set; demolished two years later.600 South 9th Street: Multiple fires over the years, including the arsons in 2023.<\/p>\n
Searfoss says the data make the risk clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen sprinklers are operating in 92% of fires, 97% of the time they are effective in extinguishing these fires completely,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
The fire marshal is urging property owners to maintain sprinkler and alarm systems, not only to protect buildings, but to protect the community and the firefighters responding to these emergencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa.- Reading\u2019s fire marshal says the arsons at the former Lincoln Chemical building are part of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[214,128,130,129,213],"class_list":{"0":"post-59027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-reading-city","10":"tag-reading-city-headlines","11":"tag-reading-city-news","12":"tag-reading-area"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}