Single sprinkler saves blind man in high-rise apartment fire (St. Paul, MN)

A stove top fire, which consumed the cabinet and crawled up the wall of a blind St. Paul man’s apartment, was extinguished by a single fire sprinkler. The man said he had accidentally left a plastic tray touching the burner and left the room while he was cooking a late lunch, according to a St. Paul Fire Department release. Firefighters responded to the blaze shortly after 3 p.m. on Oct. 30. The fire was in a high-rise apartment building at 1300 Wilson Avenue, owned by St. Paul’s Public Housing Agency. The fire department said the incident demonstrates the extreme effectiveness of sprinklers in putting out fires.