3-Alarm Fire At Apple’s Cupertino Headquarters
ONE 'HOT' COMPANY: One of the buildings on Apple's Campus in Cupertino, CA caught on fire tonight, prompting 66 or so firefighters to respond to the scene. Though 100 people were in the building (Apple's research and development unit) at the time, no one was hurt.
BREAKING NEWS: 12:35a PDT (6.13.08)-- A 3-alarm fire broke out at one of Apple's Campus buildings earlier tonight (Tuesday, 8/12) in Cupertino, California, as reported by all three news stations in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The story was big enough to push aside the top story of the night for the NBC Bay Area station (KNTV 11, San Jose CA), which is always a recap of Olympic coverage, being an NBC station.
For Joe Leo's full report visit:
http://tinyurl.com/5ss8bm
VIDEO FOOTAGE (linked via CBS5.com)--
3-Alarm Fire Burns at Apple, Inc. Headquarters
http://cbs5.com/video/?id=37817@kpix.dayport.com
According to an AP news report this morning, the three-alarm fire scorched the roof and the second level at one of the six buildings on the company's northern California campus in Cupertino.
To read more, click here.
While it sounds as if damage caused by the fire at Apple is well short of being a major disaster, I'm getting a little spooked, as it's the second major fire in 24 hours to strike an enterprise that's been a more than passing subject of my journalistic endeavors over the past two decades.
Yesterday, a disastrous fire fought by some 75 firefighters from seven fire departments burned Covey Island Boatworks, a world-renowned custom yacht building business in Petite Riviere, Nova Scotia, completely to the ground, with the 62 foot Nigel Irens Schooner yacht Maggie B, which was just completing a cosmetic refit inside the boat shop. The $3.5-million schooner, built by Covey Island Boatworks in 2006, had just returned to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia, port of her launch on May 10 to celebrate completion of the global circumnavigation for which she was built.
"It's a total loss, there's nothing salvageable from it right now," Petite Riviere fire Chief Scott Drummond commented in a news report. Maggie B's captain/owner Frank Blair, 64, a Chicago-based venture capitalist and former U.S. navy fighter pilot told the Halifax Chronicle-Herald: "To have her die where she was built — it’s completely weirding me out. This was my home for two years, so it’s like my house burned."
There is an Apple Macintosh angle to this story. The Covey Island folks are Mac-users and fans, for whom I've done occasional tech-consulting. Back in In 1999, CIB founder and president John Steele took a year-long sabbatical to cruis with his family in his restored, century+ old 50 foot Bristol Channel Pilot Cutter Marguerite T., built in Bristol, England in 1893. John, a PowerBook guy, didn't want to entirely cut the umbilical to his office at CIB, so he took his PowerBook 5300 on the voyage, coupled with a Motorola 'Wave Talk' M-sat satellite telephone system for phone and email communications.
"The only hitch," said John, "was that to make the antenna [a white plastic dome about the size and shape of a bike helmet] look as acceptable as it could on a 106 year old English cutter I mounted it on the aft face of the boom gallows. This was in the shadow of my massive boom when on anchor and on occasion this meant that I had to drop a second anchor and swing the stern of the vessel into the wind to get better reception. Otherwise, it worked a treat. I was told I'd have reception to Bermuda.... in fact it worked well to three days out of the Azores."
"The voice line was fine," John continued, "it sounded a bit odd, but also worked well. The email was reasonable CDN$120 contract per month for 2 hours of usage, which generally was all I needed. The catch is images, pictures or graphics. They take hours to download, so you just can not receive them." Today's satellite Internet technology would likely have been able to solve that problem. The old PowerBook 5300 survived the ocean voyage in fine fettle, and continued to be John's business laptop for some time after his return.
Yesterday, Covey Island Boatworks issued the following news release:
BULLETIN (August 12, 2008) - We are shocked and saddened to report that our plant at Petite Riviere, Nova Scotia, burned to the ground in the early morning hours today.
Yard president and founder John Steele said that he, the two other managing partners, and all other employees are still in the early stages of reacting to the news.
Thankfully no one was hurt in the blaze.
However, we are devastated to report that 62' schooner Maggie B was lost. Our sincere condolences to her American owner, Mr. Frank Blair, who has been contacted. His yacht was in the yard for a cosmetic refit after circling the globe over the last two years.
General Manager Al Hutchinson said, the loss of the yard was a blow to the community. "It's a tragic loss of a boat and many non-replaceable artifacts." He said the company will pick up the pieces and move on.
A small sailboat in the yard for minor repairs had left the yard earlier this month, and a months-long refit of a 38' commercial boat into a pleasure boats for Irish customers had been completed last month. Lumber was about to be ordered for a new project, a schooner for a Nova Scotia customer. John Steele said he was hopeful the company would find a way to fill the order.
Discussions are well underway for a move to the Smith and Rhuland property on the Lunenburg waterfront.
It will likely be some time before a cause of the fire is established, according to a Covey Island employee who was one of the firefighters who responded to the fire from seven neighbouring fire departments. The Nova Scotia Fire Marshal was on the scene early this afternoon.
The work force at the yard is fifteen to thirty employees depending depending on the work at hand.
Most employees who have been with the yard at least a year have shares in the company.
The boatbuilding plant was about 8,000 square feet and included two boat building bays.
The building was insured.
Charles W. Moore
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