A small fire broke out in an air conditioning unit at the Israeli Embassy, located at 3514 International Drive NW, at about noon today. It was a very small fire that was quickly extinguished, no injuries were reported, and the moderate amount of smoke in the building has reportedly already been cleared. Still, it wasn’t altogether simple for D.C. Fire and EMS to respond to the call.
Early radio reports indicated that fire fighters were not initially given access to the building through the rear gate of the embassy due to security concerns, and after that was cleared up and the fire was under control, fire crews reported that embassy officials at first refused to let them check the rest of the building to make sure the fire hadn’t extended anywhere else.
Deputy Fire Chief Kenneth Crosswhite, a department spokesperson, said running into interference from government security at embassy buildings in the District is something the department has come to expect, thanks to embassy compounds being foreign soil.
“It’s a generally accepted practice,” Crosswhite said. “When we go to the White House, we run into the same kind of thing.”
Crosswhite said that D.C. fire crews were eventually permitted to finish their work today before being asked to turn the scene back over to Israeli security. He also speculated that had the fire been more serious, the Israeli officials would not have been so picky about where the responding fire fighters went inside the building.
