ATLANTA - Firefighters in Atlanta say they've put out a blaze at the federal prison in the city.


No injuries or security breaches were reported following the three-alarm fire in the west wing of the U.S. Penitentiary. The blaze forced officials to evacuate the prison's housing unit and move inmates to another area of the building.

Atlanta Fire Rescue Capt. Jolyon Bundrige says the department was called about 9 p.m. Sunday and that 65 firefighters responded.

The fire was extinguished and smoke cleared from the building shortly before midnight. Officials from the city fire department and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are investigating.

The prison houses medium security male inmates and has a detention center for pre-trial and holdover inmates.
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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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I worked in a area where we had a prison in our 1st due. I had a couple of working incidents there and they are different. 1st they don't call you unless it is out of control. They generally try and fight the fire instead of calling you, so by the time you get they it is well involved. Another thing is security, the prisoners are the ones who normally started the fire as a distraction. Years ago at 2am, I had a well involved building that was 200' by 300' fully involved next to a cell block. After fighting the fire for about a hour with no results, I asked the guards how long it would take to evacuate the prisoners in the cell block if needed. He told me that they were not locked in, so it would only take a few minutes. I looked around and noticed that there was about a 100 prisoners just standing around watching us. That was not very conforting. Also remember, that the guards in the compound are unarmed. The only ones with weapons are the guards in the tower.

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