Thursday, 4:30 PM
Alarms save lives
By Matt Viser, Globe Staff
Shirley Foley awoke Saturday morning around 5:30, with high-pitched alarms blaring. Something smelled like burnt plastic. She woke her neighbors in the two-family house in Charlestown.
Fire officials say it was a good thing. Underground high voltage power lines had ignited, possibly because they had become wet and had shorted, and were sending lethal amounts of carbon monoxide into the homes. Carbon monoxide monitors in Foley’s building went off.
"It was a pretty serious situation," Foley said. "Thank God we’re all OK, and thank God we had the monitors. We could have lost people."
Caroline Allen, a spokeswoman for NStar, said Saturday’s incident was rare and was probably caused by wet weather that allowed water to seep into underground cables and act as a conductor, shorting wires whose insulating layer had probably worn through. The underground fire sent carbon monoxide into nearby homes through ducts and pipes. It also caused a power outage that affected about 25 houses and took about 24 hours to fix.
"This is not something we hear about all the time," Allen said. "Because there were all these factors came into play at one time, it looks like that’s what caused the carbon monoxide to travel through the conduit. The good news in this case was that they had a carbon monoxide detector."
Police and fire officials responded, and about eight residents weren’t allowed back into their homes for several hours. No one was injured, and no one was taken to the hospital, according to fire officials.
Neil Sullivan, a city building inspector who responded to the scene, said it was the second such incident he knew of in recent years.
In the last one, in Brighton, tragedy was averted when residents were awakened by a carbon monoxide monitor.
"It’s enough to kill you," he said. "It’s like having a car exhaust right in your basement."
He said the levels on Saturday morning were dangerous, many times higher than the 22 parts per million that could be withstood for more than an hour. Someone exposed to 1,000 parts per million for 30 minutes can suffer permanent brain damage, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission.
The National Safety Council estimates that up to 300 people die yearly of carbon monoxide poisoning.
A new state law went into effect last year in Massachusetts that makes carbon monoxide detectors mandatory in any residential building that uses fossil-burning fuel, such as oil, gas, wood, or charcoal. The detectors must be placed on every level of the dwelling and within 10 feet of each bedroom.
It was named Nicole’s Law after 7-year-old Nicole Garofalo, who died in January 2005 when her Plymouth home was filled with deadly amounts of carbon monoxide when furnace vents became blocked by snow during a power outage.
Steve MacDonald, spokesman for the Boston Fire Department, said firefighters respond almost daily to reports of high levels of carbon monoxide. Oftentimes, the problem is a blocked heating system that isn’t allowing the gases to vent.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
