Fire breaks out at Primo's, nearby home

Noting it was “an unusually busy day in a town like Birmingham,” Birmingham Fire Chief Paul Wells confirmed a fire call came in of a fire on the roof at 5:26 p.m. Tuesday, March 23, at Primo's Pizza, 996 S. Adams Road, and firefighters were on scene at 5:27 p.m.

“We set up an arial ladder truck and got the fire knocked down in about two minutes,” Wells reported.

Once the ladder truck was operational on-site, Wells said it flow about 1,500 gallons of water a minute. They then tackled localized hot spots at the pizzeria.

Primo's Pizza, located on Adams between Woodward and Lincoln, was occupied at the time of the fire, with employees immediately evacuated. There were no injuries reported. Primo's has been a Birmingham staple since 1978.

Wells said in his opinion, “Primo's is not a total loss. The inside had just smoke and water damage. I can see it being open in the near future.”

He credits the Birmingham Fire Department's quick response time for containing the fire, and preventing the fire from breaching the fire wall, “or there could have been much greater damage.”

While firefighters were dousing the Primo fire, just one block away, on the 1200 block of E. Lincoln, a fire started in a dumpster at a house under construction at about 5:44 p.m. It quickly spread up the siding of the home, where construction workers were working in the basement. They were able to evacuate without injury.

“Just 17 minutes later (after the Primo's call), we received a call for a fire around the corner, for a house fire,” Wells said. “Two of my trucks were on medical calls at the time. The ambulance went to the hospital, dropped off the patient, and headed to the house fire.”

He said investigators have preliminarily ruled both fires accidental, pending further investigation.