Posted by Peter Carpenter, a resident of the Atherton: Lindenwood neighborhood, on Oct 3, 2007 at 12:44 am

This fire illustrates the importance of having fire sprinklers. Had this home been sprinklered the fire would have been confined to the room of origin, an alarm would have been sent as soon as the sprinkler head at the point of origin was activated and the house would have suffered minimal damage. Fortunately, this fire did not occur at night time, when the vast majority of residential fires do occur and when the residents are usually present and asleep. As is usually the case with night time residential fires most children and seniors sleep though the sound of fire alarms- had that happened we would have had one or more fatalities.

This fire proves the wisdom of the decision by East Palo Alto and Atherton to require fire sprinklers in all new and many remodeled residences - both property and lives will be saved by those decisions.

Posted by Harold Schapelhouman, Fire Chief, a resident of the Menlo Park: The Willows neighborhood, on Oct 3, 2007 at 8:16 am

Update

The estimaged structure loss will be $800,000.00 and the contents loss will be over $250,000.00 bringing the total loss well over 1 million dollars.

The fire is still under investigation.

No one was injured in the fire.

Both the Mayor and City Manager of Atherton met with both the Fire Chief and homeowner after the Fire to review the damage.

Once Athertons new ordinance related to altered or remodeled structures takes affect later this month, the home will be required to be re-built with a residential sprinkler system which will eliminate this type of extensive devestation from ever occuring again.