Generator is the cause of SPD fire
Published on July 29th, 1998
STONEHAM, MA - The Stoneham Police Department received the old hot foot last Wednesday afternoon when a backup generator overheated and caused a minor fire at the station.
According to Fire Chief Lawrence Lamey, about $10,000 in damage was caused to the station's basement area when the backup generator, which went on line due to a power failure, failed to shut itself off. Heat from the overworked generator caused debris (i.e. cardboard boxes and rags) which was left nearby to burn.
"It was a real minor incident," Lamey said. "The generator overheated and there was some smoke from some combustible material. We quickly knocked it down and contained the smoldering fire.
"It was a fairly routine call," he explained.
Police Chief Eugene Passaro told the Independent that emergency communication was down for less than a minute with calls being shifted over to the Reading and Burlington 911 systems soon after the failure. Electrical power to the station was shut down for less than 10 minutes, he said.
"The people didn't lose out on any emergency services," he explained. "We put a lot of safety features on this system and that is good."
Passaro blamed the fire on the 1950'5 era generator and explained that the storage and safety precautions that are used for the electrical back-up are also out of date.
Passaro said that the Police Department had lost power at about 3 pm Wednesday afternoon and the emergency generator had come on line as designed. When the main power source was restored, however, the emergency generator failed to shut itself off as it is intended to.
"(The generator) should have gone off," Passaro said. "It knocked everything right off line."
On Monday afternoon, repair specialists looked at the generator which had sustained some damage during the fire and determined that it was repairable. In the meantime, the Police Department has been renting an emergency generator in case a similar event occurs.
If it had been determined that the generator was unsalvageable, Passaro explained that he would have requested the purchase of a new generator which could have been installed outside the station and then brought to the new police station once construction was completed (expected to be in October, 2000). Designs for the new police station are still in the works, he said.
Like the generator, he said that the station, itself, is a relic.
"There's just no room in this place," Passaro explained when speaking of the present structure. "(Police work) just isn't like it was 30 years ago. I have evidence everywhere in this place now and that's how departments get in trouble is with mishandling evidence."
In addition, he said that the station lacks public rest rooms and interview rooms which have become necessities in modern day police work.
"Stuff keeps getting piled up in here," Passaro said. "When I walk in here in the morning and see this stuff, I just feel like walking back out the door."
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