Posted on 11/17/2017 5:10:34 AM PST by ConservativeWarrior
A five-alarm fire ravaged a large nursing home complex in West Chester late Thursday night into Friday morning, forcing the evacuation of more than 200 residents into 40-degree temperatures and sending an unknown number to area hospitals.
At a 6:30 a.m. briefing, officials would not provide information about casualties, including whether anyone was dead or missing. They only reported that the fire was declared under control at 1:22 a.m. and that the cause is under investigation.
There were no reported injuries among firefighters.
Hours after the inferno at the Barclay Friends facility was declared under control, firefighters poured water on the smoldering ruins as the sun came up.
Police said two units with a total of 143 beds were involved in the fire and that the blaze appeared to have started in a unit for residents with memory problems.
Many of the facility’s residents, unable to walk and bundled in blankets against the cold, were pushed in wheelchairs and rolled on beds and ambulance litters to safety after the fire broke out around 10:46 p.m. Thursday.
Neighborhood residents who rushed to the facility and staff members helped firefighters and police with the evacuation, working quickly to get the residents, many of them elderly, away from the raging blaze.
First responders “made numerous rescues,” officials said. Injured residents were taken to area hospitals, including Chester County Hospital, about a half-mile away.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
West Chester, PA
My home town, constant stream of sirens heard from about 11 pm until 3 am.
Nice to see the community (and those surrounding it) come together and help these folks.
Wonder how that started. My guess is that maybe something to do with electricity.
Unless PA's regs are wildly different, I don't think that ciggies, stoves, sources like that would be an issue. Unless staffing wasn't up to snuff. Wiring might still be an issue, especially in an older building. But starting in a memory wing...that really concerns me.
Some of the early police scanner chatter mentioned an explosion (according to a fire police friend). No mention of it in any of the news articles, though.
I’ve been at a local assisted living facility for a number of evacs, some planned, some not. None of them have gone smoothly.
Blaze repored at 10:46 pm. Barclay was an asssited living and skilled nursing facility. From what I’ve been reading, PA needs to take a dang good look at how the evacuation was handled as well as what started that fire.
Some of the early police scanner chatter mentioned an explosion (according to a fire police friend).
Could be bottled oxygen.
I grew up in Newtown Square, and am very familiar with West Chester. My brother has lived near West Chester Pike and 352 for over 30 years.
It’s interesting. I own a home inspection business, and frequently run into home buyers who are afraid of natural gas in the house. I remind them that an electrical issue burning a house down is far more common than a natural gas explosion.
We'll probably never know, at least from the media. They like to report fire disasters, but unless there's some juicy, newsworthy aspect to it, they rarely bother to publish the cause. That's a shame, because we could all benefit from knowing how fires start so we ourselves can be more aware.
Preliminarily, I'm going with smoking or a fire from a misused portable heater. Both are most common in assisted living homes-- heaters especially at the beginning of colder temperatures.
“I would hope that one was required by the state as well as the county and that it was kept in good working order.”
I’m a resident of the same city and county as the nursing home, but a different township.
My 12 year old townhouse has an obscene amount of sprinklers, to the point that guests comment on the fact. (the family room is roughly 12 x 20 and has 5 sprinkler heads, and the bedrooms have 2 or 3 each.)
Not sure what was up with this facility.
TG all the old folks got out OK!
I did see one report that said the firemen noticed reduced water pressure but that could have just been from the sheer number of units on the scene. We'll hopefully find out and the other like facilities can take steps to make sure it doesn't happen again.
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