POSTED: 08/25/2014 08:18:15 PM PDT
In the wake of several apartment fires in the past 13 months, including one on Sunday, Redwood City is taking inventory of its rental housing stock to see which buildings do not have sprinklers, a city fire official said.
The city also is exploring ways it might be able to give building owners financial incentives to install the sprinklers, even though they are not legally required in older buildings, Deputy Fire Chief Stan Maupin said Monday.
"It's expensive, we understand that," Maupin said.
"But we've had a string of fires in apartment buildings, so we needed to take a look at it."
On Sunday, a three-alarm fire spread through three apartments in a 12-unit building at 950 Regent Court at about 7 p.m.
Although the cause of the fire is still being determined, it began in a unit occupied by only one woman at the time and appears to be accidental, Maupin said. The woman was taken to the hospital with minor smoke inhalation, along with another building resident for a medical condition unrelated to the fire, he added.
The blaze gutted one unit and caused moderate damage to two others. All 34 occupants of the building were evacuated and taken to a shelter set up by the American Red Cross at Veterans Memorial Senior Center for the night because the building's power needed to be secured, Maupin said.
The state began mandating fire sprinklers in new apartments in 1989, but did not require older structures to be retrofitted with them.
Last year, a six-alarm fire in July that destroyed the Hallmark Apartment Houses at 531 Woodside Road killed one man and sent 18 others to the hospital. Months later, a six-alarm fire blazed through the 73-unit Terrace Apartments complex, injuring four. Those fires were also deemed by officials to have been accidental.
Email Bonnie Eslinger at beslinger@dailynewsgroup.com; follow her attwitter.com/bonnieeslinger.
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