Springfield tenants left listening to fire alarm for several hours over weekend

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WGGB/WSHM) - A fire alarm at one Springfield apartment complex went off for seven hours Saturday night, forcing residents to leave their homes just to get away from the sound.

We spoke with Springfield firefighters who told us that residents had no choice but to wait for the property manager. If they tried to stop the alarm from working themselves, they would have faced criminal charges.

We caught up with one resident of Pine Street Apartments who told us how she desperately tried to get away from the noise that night.

“The sound is so annoying,” Margarita Vega told us. “Right now, I have a headache, a migraine, because the sound, it’s so loud.”

Springfield Fire Department Captain Drew Piemonte told us they were dispatched to the apartment complex after smoke from one resident’s kitchen set off the alarm.

“The arriving companies found the situation to be someone cooking, and it activated the alarm system,” Captain Piemonte said. “After they investigated it and determined there was no fire hazard, they notified dispatch to notify the property manager.”

They got there around 4 p.m. and residents said they did not get relief from the sound until about 10 p.m.

We learned from Piemonte that the residents, and even the firefighters, could have been criminally charged if they tried to stop the alarm themselves.

“If a tenant or somebody in the building decides to try and silence the alarm system themselves or disable the audible alarm, they could be prosecuted under section 32 of the Mass. general law,” Captain Drew explained.

Tenants told Western Mass News that they called the emergency after-hours call answering service to try and get the issue resolved.

We spoke with the executive director of the Springfield Housing Authority, Denise Jordan. She told us that the after-hours call answering service called the property manager who was out of town with no service.

She added that as soon as the property manager got service, she called the maintenance team and someone was there right away.

Jordan also told us she has updated their information with both the fire department and the after-hours call answering service to include more people, so they can prevent this from happening again.