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Kitchen fire forces elderly apartment evacuation

DUSHORE – Close to 100 elderly residents were evacuated late Tuesday afternoon from the four-story Sullivan Terrace Apartments on North German Street (Route 220) when a kitchen fire broke out in a second floor apartment, according to borough Fire Chief Scott Hope.

No one was injured, Hope said, and a disaster was averted thanks to a neighbor who saw smoke coming out of a woman’s apartment and called 911 about 5 p.m.

The apartment house is equipped an automatic fire alarm system, but for an unknown reason, the fire did not activate it, Hope said.

When firefighters arrived, smoke was showing from a second-floor apartment on the south side of the complex, said Hope, who tripped the fire alarm himself.

The alarm alerted other residents in the building, all of whom were safely evacuated and taken to the firehouse three blocks away while firefighters extinguished the fire and cleared the apartment of smoke, Hope said.

Investigators said the cause of the emergency was accidental cooking and that the fire, which was put out in a matter of minutes, was confined to a stove. All tenants were allowed to return their apartments within two hours, Hope said.

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