I went through my first fire about 4 months ago. First of all, I would highly suggest making an emergency management plan if you do not already have one. I got the call from the resident; they had already called the fire dept. I rushed to the property from my house, grabbed my camera and EMP from the office, and headed for the unit. The fire dept had already evacuated the building. After they put the fire out and I got my pics I got on the phone with the renters insurance company. I only had 2 families displaced (one of them were the ones with the fire). I had enough vacants for the residents to move in to, and offered them what I had until we could get them back into their apt. I called my superior and informed him what happened, and he sent a contractor crew to get to work. The renters insurance company was a hasel to get the money from, but my suggestion would be to call them every day (maybe even multiple times a day), and eventually they will cut you a check!! If the tenant would not have had renters insurance, they would be responsibe for all the damages of course. I hope this helped!

What an excellent post! I don't know what area you live in but here in California, we have a book called Managing Rental Housing, The Complete Reference Guide to Managing Rental Housing in California (available through the California Apartment Assosition). It deals with many specific things including how to handle evictions, lease violations and even bed bugs! It has everything you need from start to finish and is truly the Landlord's Bible to managing properties!

It is also good to create an emergency plan like Thomas mentioned. All of your staff need to know where all the shut off valves are and what phone numbers to call for emergencies and who your insurance provider is.

It is sad that the classes do not teach what to do in those kind of situations but your supervisor or owner should be able to sit down with you and go over what they are expecting you to do in those emergency circumstances and then document it for future reference.

Very good tips so far!

I had four fires at my community within a year, but fortunately none for the last few years.

First step: REMAIN CALM!
Second: Determine source of fire and necessity of emergency services.
Third: Evacuate the premises and meet in the pre-determined location.
Fourth: Document and report the incident to management/owners.

Once I called 911 out because I saw smoke billowing out of a unit. It turns out it was just a barbecue on a residents deck. No one harmed and no property damage. This is why I recommend locating the source before you take action. I've attempted to exterminate several fires, so I know a typical fire extinguisher will NOT put out a fire more than a few inches wide or high. A large box of baking soda works better. We have a public transit stop in our parking lot, and commuters frequently toss their cigarette butts into the foliage as they board. Sometimes this ignites the bushes or bark dust. Once I ran out to extinguish a burning cigarette butt but the fire extinguisher did not help in the slightest. We lost four cars, two trees, a bus bench, and a large row of foliage that day. No injuries though! Another time the some burning bark dust blew across the parking lot and over to my building and burned some bushes right next to resident units. We were very lucky the fire department is close by and was able to get all the fires out quickly. Only once have we had internal building damage. Just in one unit, caused by a kitchen/cooking fire.

Our fire department sends out flyers to multifamily communities, we post them on bulletin boards and in the laundry room. We also check smoke alarms in every unit annually and ask all residents to do so at lease renewal.