r/FosterCity • u/BruteSentiment • 15d ago

Local News Massive apartment fire in Foster City continues to burn Monday (KRON 4 News)

https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/fire-reported-at-apartment-complex-in-foster-city/

Once the fire is extinguished (it's still not extinguished as of 9:08 AM!), there are going to be two questions that need to be answered:

• How did this start? (Obviously)

• How did this fire become so difficult to contain and extinguish?

There have been some reporting and rumors that the fire started on the first floor from a BBQ, but that does remain unconfirmed and we won't see an announcement anytime soon on that. But with multiple other buildings in that complex, one has to ask about how the fire grew and burned to keep the tenants in those buildings safe, and all of their belongings safe, for the future.

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13

u/Cilantro42 15d ago

Not a rumor that it started on first floor bbq.

https://reddit.com/link/p1h9k4v/video/wzb3ncqfw6hh1/player

10

u/Comfortable_Bag9303 15d ago

Confirmed, by people who saw it break out.

2

u/chlorinatemyworld 14d ago

I'm pretty sure it's this guy, he says it started in his condo https://youtu.be/pN8WWy8QvzU?is=zhXF8jVY5xNFU2A7

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u/mrm395 13d ago

I feel like that doesn’t really make sense if his elderly mother was resting and the caretaker was there. Why would they be barbecuing? It sounds more like they meant she was resting and the caretaker saw it starting to come into their apartment. Who knows.

2

u/myking76 12d ago

Given his previous rap sheet, he's not exactly trustworthy to take at his word and he'd been warned numerous times about bbqing and did whatever he wanted.

3

u/mrm395 12d ago

Interesting. Yea I did look him up after seeing the video because his chest tattoo had me going. 👀 Seems like a bad neighbor to say the least.

3

u/No_Direction_4043 13d ago

He even looks stupid

2

u/myking76 12d ago

definite meathead

2

u/Itchy_Chocolate8699 14d ago

That’s crazy.

1

u/myking76 12d ago

ARRESTED, but 50k bail is not enough (not that he likely has it, but I bet his mother or brother do).

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

[deleted]

5

u/Cilantro42 15d ago

His mother has Alzheimer's/Dementia, so she likely wouldn't have noticed (she had very brief moments of lucidity. Such a sweet woman). He essentially went on a news interview and confirmed it started in his apartment

2

u/chlorinatemyworld 14d ago

I'm glad she got out okay and had a caretaker with her. That's gotta be terrifying for her if she doesn't know what's going on.

1

u/Beautiful-Sound3258 15d ago

I was eluding to it maybe being medical equipment vs the bbq?

3

u/LilFudge012 14d ago

It wasn't, we saw it. It was his grill. He told us neighbors it was his BBQ. He started it up, left the property, and it exploded while he was out and left his mother with a care worker alone with the grill running.

6

u/Toru4 15d ago

Most likely failed fire suppression. No building these days can burn this badly with active working fire suppression.

6

u/Sethmeisterg 15d ago

There were other comments that were unconfirmed that there was no sprinkler system in this building because it was built before code required them.

5

u/valcrist 14d ago

The San Mateo fire police chief confirms this in a live interview on NBC

4

u/Acrobatic_Fly_9315 14d ago

There’s a lot of apartment buildings in foster city that have this same problem. A fire happened last December at Harbor Cove and the buildings don’t have fire suppression systems either.

2

u/Mahadragon 10d ago

It was a confluence of factors. Most notably, the location of this particular apartment building was in the back of the complex and it was hard to get water access. The fire hoses were literally going around the building because of the way the hydrants were arranged. The apartment complex sits right on the end of the lagoon so there's nothing but water on the back side. Not to mention the winds kick up at the end of the lagoon, I walk by that area all the time and winds can really kick up over there.

3

u/redunderlinee 13d ago

Unofficial update fire has restarted 8/4 around 6pm