Fire Chief Says Electrical Event Cause of Adams Morgan Fire

The fire that destroyed an Adams Morgan condominium building was caused by an electrical problem, Fire Chief Dennis L. Rubin said in a press conference this afternoon.

"It was an electrical event that happened between the cockloft and the roof area," Rubin said. "We're looking to identify the exact piece of equipment."

Rubin also said 11 cats and a dog were rescued from the burning building. None was harmed. D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) called for a meeting Thursday to discuss the water issues that hampered fighting the fire. He said Rubin and D.C. Water and Sewer Authority General Manager Jerry N. Johnson will be there.

A century-old six-inch main was unable to supply water quickly enough to put out the fire in the four-story building, fire officials said. Crews unfurled 4,000 feet of hose to Connecticut Avenue and 3,000 feet of hose to Columbia Road, where 20-inch mains are located, to get more water, officials said.

No one was seriously hurt, but dozens of people were left homeless, and damage to the stately brick building was estimated to be in the millions. Residents escaped unaided or were evacuated.

WASA has known for at least seven years that many of the District's water mains need to be replaced and has begun to upgrade them.

Rubin and Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) called for immediate action to address aging, undersized mains. Both faulted WASA, a quasi-independent public agency, for not moving fast enough to replace about 170 miles of six-inch mains, which make up 13 percent of WASA's underground system.

"Lines need to be replaced just as soon as humanly possible," Fenty said. "There's nothing more to say. The lines aren't big enough."

The water mains are the responsibility of WASA, which also drew criticism from city officials this year for not acting quickly enough to fix broken fire hydrants. Those complaints came after a major fire at the Georgetown public library, in which the first two hydrants tapped by firefighters were not working. They wound up using hydrants about two blocks away.

For the past seven years, WASA has been systematically replacing inadequate water mains as part of a 20-year plan to overhaul the system, officials said. WASA also has started replacing lead pipes and water main valves and making improvements to the city's drinking-water storage and wastewater treatment facilities -- areas that were neglected for decades before 1996, when the agency was transferred from the D.C. government, Johnson said. Many older cities are dealing with similar issues.

"We've known [water mains] have been a problem for a number of years. The infrastructure had been neglected for a large number of years," Johnson said. "We were in survival and catch-up mode. Now we are in sustainability mode."

Johnson said that the agency has budgeted $15 million yearly for water main replacement and that the condition of the pipe, not just the size, determines which areas get on the priority replacement list. "If somebody else has a better idea, we'll certainly listen to it," he said.