Friday, August 15, 2008

Asbestos testing continues after boulder apartment fire

Environmental experts have carried out multiple air quality tests at the Hill House Apartments, the Boulder, Colorado building which caught fire early in July. Officials say it could be weeks before residents can return to their homes, due to the presence of airborne asbestos in the building. The four-story building burned for several hours on July 12, leaving more than fifty residents homeless, most of whom are students at the University of Colorado. The fire started at around 5.15 in the afternoon, and police and fire officials say the likely cause is a discarded cigarette. The next day, crews found there was asbestos present in drywall and as a result officials determined that the building was uninhabitable. Air testing and preliminary clean-up has been an ongoing process since then but the building is still not considered safe for habitation for the residents who were displaced. Ironically, asbestos was often used as a fire proofing and flame retardant material. On that basis it was added to many different types of construction products up until the mid 1980s. However, inhalation of asbestos fibers can cause cancer and other serious diseases, meaning that there are health and safety concerns for residents of the building and firefighters who worked to quench the flames. During a fire, asbestos fibers can easily become airborne as burned materials disintegrate and are spread around by high-pressure water blasts. In severe cases an entire building may become unsafe even if it contained asbestos in discrete areas. These conditions have in the past prevented residents of other burned buildings from retrieving possessions at all, because removing asbestos from porous items such as furniture and clothing is a difficult, lengthy, and expensive process. In Texas earlier this year, for example, former tenants of the Bellerive Apartments were left homeless and without their possessions for several months because they had become contaminated with asbestos. According to Dave Lowrey, a Boulder Fire Marshal, the fifty or more residents who were displaced from the thirty burned units in the Hill House Apartment building won’t know whether they can return to their homes until the air tests are fully completed. Lowrey says the decision can’t be made until a new round of air samples are taken and tested, and “We will make a determination as soon as we know how bad it is.” (Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News)

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