Aquarium pump blamed for apartment fire

By Anthony Rifilato and Dana Williams June 07, 2007

Baldwin firefighters made a dramatic rescue last week after a fire broke out in an apartment complex at 1861 Grand Avenue and engulfed the building with smoke, fire officials said.

The fire started at about 8:00 a.m. on May 29, after a fire broke out in one of the co-op apartments on the first floor. "It started as an electrical fire, after a power supply to a fish tank's water pump overheated," said Baldwin Fire Chief Doug Wiedmann. "The fire was contained to the apartment, we were able to hold it before it spread."

Wiedmann said the fire was not deemed suspicious. Smoke from the fire, however, spread throughout the building, located on Grand Avenue, south of Ethel T. Kloberg Drive. Firefighters evacuated tenants, removing three through the building's first-floor windows because the hallways were filled with smoke, Wiedmann said.
"The smoke was in the hallway, and because we couldn't get them out through the normal hallway, we had to get them out through the windows," Wiedmann said. "We took out three people through windows and we evacuated everybody from the building."

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