The Gulf Coast Newspapers had a little more excitement than normal last Friday. It was more excitement than any of us wanted at the main office in Robertsdale.

I was sitting in the conference room talking to a guest about the different forms of government in Alabama and Baldwin County. Mid-sentence, I heard a boom and the lights went out. Figuring a transformer blew, I wasn’t going to panic. Even though we were in an interior room, there was plenty of light from outside filtering around the corners. So I kept the conversation going in the dark.

It was only when production manager Ken Hilton ran down the hall yelling, “I need a fire extinguisher. Where is a fire extinguisher?” that I decided it might be time for action. I told the guest we probably needed to get out. I ushered him to the right toward the light and the bright, sunny outdoors. For some reason, I turned left and headed toward the fire.

Opening the door into the press area, I was greeted with the acrid smell of billowing greenish smoke that was quickly filling the rafters. Ken headed right in search of a fire extinguisher, so I turned left. Sure enough, there was one hanging on the wall. I just hoped it was charged. While trying to remain calm, I did panic a little. The extinguisher didn’t come off the wall easily. I tugged and tugged and the device was still clinging to the wall. I then remembered it was attached to a bracket. I had to undo the “belt buckle” and it popped right off in my hand.

I handed the extinguisher to Ken, about the same time receptionist Linda Underwood hustled into the pressroom with another extinguisher. I was about to pull the pin, but decided to wait to see what we were facing. As I walked under a roof beam, I could see flames shooting out of a metal heating/air-conditioning duct. Ken hit it with several blasts from the CO2 extinguisher and the flames quickly died down. He later admitted it was the first time he had ever discharged a fire extinguisher, to put out a fire that is.

With the immediate threat of fire lessened, we calmed down and began to assess the situation. There was a thick layer of smoke hugging the roof, so we started opening doors. When I opened a roll-up door on the loading dock, the smoke began pouring out.

It was then that I noticed there was water sprinkling down inside the building.

“How do you turn off the sprinkler system?” I asked. “We don’t have a sprinkler system,” was Ken’s reply.

Step No. 2 was to shut off the water. Slight problem though, no one knew where the main shutoff valve to the building was located. I started walking around the building one way. Ken went the other way. Neither of us had any success. I went back inside as the first fire truck began pulling up. I saw some plastic water lines on the wall and a series of shutoff valves. One of the lines headed up toward the fire area. As I began to spin the knob, the sound of the sudden shower immediately began to subside, so I kept turning.

Fire fighters from Robertsdale and Silverhill responded to the plant. Seeing the smoke billowing out of the loading dock, firemen in full turnout gear and air tanks took the long way to get to the fire site, where Ken and I were standing. We suppressed the fire. We turned it over to the professionals to make sure it was completely out. We can’t thank them enough.

It was chilly last Friday morning, so the heat was turned on to warm up the office area. Employees had noticed the smell of smoke. Folks thought a ballast in a florescent light was going out. It was only when smoke came out of the vents and the fire shorted out the power that folks got excited.

Later it was determined that an electric heating strip in the air handler had caught on fire. The fire burned insulation off wires, which shorted out and tripped breakers, causing the power outage. The “sprinkler system” was where the plastic water line ran near the air duct. The heat melted the pipe.

A plumber, a HVAC man and an electrician had us up and rolling within a few hours.

All the doors were left open the rest of the day to try to get the smoke smell out of the building. Publisher Sudie Gambrell likened the aroma to “someone putting leftover turnip greens in the microwave and leaving them in too long.”

To me, it smelled like burnt insulation, both from electric wiring and from around the ductwork.

But the incident did serve as a warning. We are in the process of taking inventory at all three GCN offices too not only locate all the fire extinguishers, but to make sure they are charged. The near future will include every employee going on a walk through to see where the little red lifesavers are located.

William Moore is the Senior Editor at Gulf Coast Newspapers. He can be reached at wmoore@gulfcoastnewspapers