COLUMBUS – Columbus fire officials have confirmed that it was someone trying to burn a Christmas tree in a fireplace that set off a two-alarm fire Wednesday afternoon that caused $2 million worth of damage to a Northeast Side apartment complex and chased more than 30 people out of their homes.
The cause of fire in the area of the 5000 block of Buffalo Run in the Remington Station Apartment complex at Little Turtle was ruled accidental and no charges were filed, Division of Fire spokesman Battalion Chief Steve Martin said.
Martin says fire, smoke and water damage displaced 10 families, including 19 adults and 15 children.
Firefighters responding to several reports of smoke from one of the buildings in the complex at 1:10 p.m. discovered flames coming from the roof of a wood-framed, wood-sided apartment, Martin said. In the face of strong southwest winds, he says the crews immediately called for a second alarm.
While firefighters tried to battle the flames from inside the building the wind pushed heat and flames past them, over their heads, and farther into the building so they were ordered out of the building and set up a defensive attack, using large nozzles on the tips of three aerial ladders to extinguish the fire, pumping over 2,000 gallons of water per minute on the blaze, Martin said.
The fire was contained after approximately 90 minutes, Martin said.
While firefighters were battling the fire, Martin says residents of one of the units admitted that they were disposing of a Christmas tree in the prefabricated fireplace.
“Combined with the fact that the fire seemed to have started at the same end of the building that the occupant lived in, made this a reasonable explanation,” Martin said. “Not wanting to jump to conclusions, investigators conducted a thorough investigation to make sure there were no other conflicting or contributing factors to this admission.”
Martin says the lead investigator on the case determined the man was cutting small branches off the tree and placing them in the fireplace and heat from the fireplace flue radiated to the apartment walls until they reached an ignition point.