EPHRATA – A heater at the Ephrata Safeway triggered the building’s sprinkler system and a call to the Ephrata Fire Department on Tuesday.  

Ephrata Fire Department Assistant Fire Chief Anthony Graff said store employees called the fire department at around 3:12 p.m. because the sprinkler system went off. Graff showed up to the scene about three minutes after the call and found one of the heaters in the store had emitted enough heat to trigger the sprinkler system.  

Graff waited for an engine to arrive at the scene, which took about 10 minutes, and fire crews turned off the sprinklers. He said he wanted to ensure they had another form of water available before shutting them off. The department disconnected the heater from the power supply and left the store by 3:40 p.m. Safeway took a couple of hours to clean up the water, but the store is functioning as usual.  

“It generated enough heat that caused the nearby sprinkler to activate, which probably kept it from heating up anything else, and that's potentially causing ignition to anything else,” Graff said. “So, we never really did have an active fire in the store, but we certainly did have the potential of it, and that the sprinkler system worked exactly how it's supposed to and kind of slowed the spread of flames. That heater was hot enough that even when I got there you could see the glowing elements massively overheating inside.” 

Management at the Ephrata Safeway declined to comment when contacted.