Ways to be prepared in case of fire

When a fire broke out at Bethel Towers last week — destroying an apartment and leaving its inhabitant severely burned — residents Jane and Lloyd Reece felt well prepared to handle the emergency.

After completing basic fire safety and preparedness training at the facility in September, the couple knew just what to do when they heard the alarm, which included snatching their “grab and go” bag on the way out the door.

Preparing an emergency bag is one precaution seniors can take when it comes to emergency preparedness, and they are encouraged to fill it with such practical items as lists of medication and emergency contacts, an extra pair of glasses, small amounts of food and water, and a change of undergarments.

“It’s a consolation to know that you have something to grab that would help you in an emergency,” said Jane Reece, 68, who lives on the 10th floor of the building. “I think the training really helped us in the fire, especially that the people had been warned that they would have to be coming down all those flights of stairs.”

Standing 18 stories high, Bethel Towers offers 270 apartments to low-income seniors in Costa Mesa, but for a lot of them, that is a great number of stairs to tackle during an emergency evacuation.

Such was the case for Ken Trosper, who lives across the hall from the sixth-floor apartment where the fire started the evening of March 1.

He’s dealt with emphysema since 1985, and the evacuation process — which involved staying low to the ground and avoiding elevators — was quite physically taxing. He was sent to Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian because firefighters suspected his difficulty breathing was the result of smoke inhalation.

Though the stairs may be a challenge, many of the building’s physical features — concrete walls, floors and ceilings, dry wall partitions and fire doors — kept the fire from spreading outside the apartment where it started, building administrator Dan Wilderman said.

And there is a possibility Bethel Towers will become better equipped still, with the Costa Mesa City Council set to discuss a fire protection system for the building during Tuesday’s study session.

The project, estimated to cost between $2 million and $4 million, would include a retrofit of the building’s wet fire protection system, which does not include fire sprinklers, as it was constructed under a previous fire code.

Heading the investigation of last week’s blaze, Costa Mesa Fire Capt. Kevin Diamond, whose engine was the first on the scene, was satisfied both with the firefighters’ efficiency in extinguishing the fire — which took only 15 minutes — and the seniors’ ability to handle the event calmly and orderly, crediting the training many of them had completed with the Costa Mesa Fire Department.

Wilderman agreed that the classes led by fire prevention specialist Brenda Emrick in basic fire safety, as well as the 20-hour Community Emergency Response Team training that six Bethel Towers residents completed in September, proved extremely valuable during the blaze.

“As a consequence of the training, we didn’t have a single person who panicked or did something dangerous, disruptive or unhelpful,” he said.

In addition to preparing an emergency bag, Emrick suggests that seniors do their best to avoid the common causes of home-based fires, which often involve cooking, electrical wiring and smoking.

Her tips include not using the stove if you are sleepy or taking medication that makes you drowsy, being careful not to overload electrical outlets, keeping space heaters far from anything combustible and not smoking in the home.

Furthermore, seniors — like everyone else — are advised to monitor their smoke detectors and know two exit routes out of their homes.

The next session of Community Emergency Response Team training, open to anyone 18 and older, is scheduled for Wednesday evenings beginning April 18. For more information or to sign up, call (714) 327-7406.

“With this program, we are not only teaching them to help themselves, but we have a trained cadre of people who can help us if we need them to,” Emrick said.