By Roger Lanse

Tuesday night, Oct. 3, at approximately 9 p.m. the Silver City Fire Department was dispatched to the Denny’s restaurant on Silver Heights Blvd. in relation to a reported fire.

According to Fire Chief Milo Lambert, kitchen staff advised they smelled smoke and when they lifted a ceiling tile, flames could be seen in the attic. Although SCFD personnel arrived at the business in less than two minutes, Lambert said, the sprinkler system had activated and “my guys didn’t have to put a drop of water on it.”

It seems electrical wiring to exterior decorative lights malfunctioned, Lambert told the Beat, and that was the source of the fire.

The Grant County Regional Dispatch Authority was requested to issue a reverse 911 call to all off-duty SCFD firefighters to ensure enough personnel would be on hand, but, Lambert said, the reverse 911 system apparently malfunctioned also and instead of only notifying SCFD firefighters, subscribers in the entire county received the call. “We got so many calls for help last night,” Lambert said, “We’ve got people offering to come in and work, we’ve got citizens that were brewing coffee to come down because they didn’t know what else to do to help us out -- like I don’t know what to do but I got a coffee pot. We had a massive outpouring of support from the community even though it was in error. It was eye-opening that the community would support us that much.”

Everyone was evacuated from the restaurant safely and no injuries were reported either to customers or to firefighters, according to Lambert. Damage to the building was minor, Lambert stated, however the ceiling in the kitchen is open and the restaurant remains closed as of today, Wednesday, Oct. 4.

Lambert extolled the value of preventative measures such as the sprinkler system installed at Denny’s. “If we work prevention, we are not going to have to sweep up ashes,” he said.