Alarms not triggered during IHOP fire

REVERE – State investigators want to know why an early Sunday morning fire inside the Squire Road International House of Pancakes did not trip heat and smoke alarms.Revere Deputy Fire Chief Glen Rich said the 3:23 a.m. fire caused an estimated $250,000 damage to the 105 Squire Road franchise. The restaurant was open and occupied when the fire started, but Rich said no employees, customers or firefighters were hurt.Rich said police officers called in the fire report and said four fire crews extinguished the fire in about an hour.The blaze scorched the roof line and a section of the distinctive blue A-frame style building?s chimney and left soot piled around a rear door. State Police and Department of Fire Services investigators moved in and out of the closed restaurant mid-morning Monday.?We have an ongoing code compliance investigation into why the heat and smoke alarm system did not activate and into whether or not the kitchen suppression system functioned as it is supposed to,” state Department of Fire Services spokeswoman Jennifer Mieth said in a statement.Mieth described the fire as “a grease fire in the kitchen,” but city of Revere food inspector Tony Dagosta said the fire was electrical in origin.Dagosta said the IHOP passed a winter inspection and underwent a recent remodeling. He said the franchise planned but did not undertake a proposed conversion from an electric to gas power.IHOP corporate spokesman Craig Hoffman could not be reached for comment Monday.