A FIRE AT A CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA, APARTMENT building Tuesday morning challenged the CFD with a night-rescue problem. The 70-unit 4-story building was heavily damaged and firefighters rescued many upper-story residents by ground ladders.
Charlotte Observer
The fire was brought under control in 3 hours and aside from one civilian who was transported for observation, no injuries have been reported.
FireNews.net has the full story along with a response roster and a video report HERE.
A HEAVY FIRE IN TOURCOING, FRANCE, EARLY THIS MORNING has left at least three people dead and ten more injured or missing. The fire broke out in a 12-unit apartment building and when the first units arrived the building was already well-involved.
photos by La Voix du Nord
Greeting them were the severely burned bodies of a man and a woman who had jumped out of a 2nd-story window. Shortly after, the entire 2nd floor collapsed onto the first floor. First alarm firefighters were able to rescue six people from inside the building before it became untenable and they also found the charred body of a third victim.
Four of the six people rescued were seriously injured and all six have been transported to hospitals. Including some injuries that were treated on the scene, there are 13 victims accounted for so far.
The severity of the fire and the overall destruction lead to fears that there will be more victims buried in the rubble inside. The 50 firefighters on the scene had the fire under control in about three hours. Investigators are on the scene now trying to determine the cause and location of the origin.
La Voix du Nord has the story and a 10-image photo gallery HERE.
Update, Sunday morning. Scroll down.
Update #2: Video added.
A FIRE BROKE OUT IN A LARGE APARTMENT BUILDING in Malden, Massachusetts, this morning (Saturday) just before 6 am. The large, U-shaped brick building is five stories high and the first-arriving firefighters found fire showing from a top floor unit. In short order, the fire demanded a total of six alarms in the sub-freezing weather and brought fire units from 17 departments.
Boston Herald / Garfinkel photo
The fire was declared “contained” at 10:30 am, but it is still an active incident. Firegeezer will update this story later when more information is made available. Read the early report in the Boston Herald HERE.
Update, Sunday morning:
The fire was extinguished after 20 fire companies had been mustered to attack the 80-yr.-old brick building. The Boston Globe summarizes:
“It was extremely difficult firefighting,’’ said Malden Assistant Chief John Colangeli, standing before the badly damaged Mystic Side apartment building yesterday afternoon as firefighters continued to contend with hot spots more than nine hours after the call came in. A charred sink, blackened house plant, and other debris from upper floors littered the soot-covered mulch in front of the building, where shrubs were encased in ice from the fire hoses.
The fire started in a corner apartment on the upper floor of the 4 1/2-story, U-shaped building at roughly 5:30 a.m., Malden and state officials said. The 80-year-old brick building, which sits at 503-509 Pleasant St., has 30 one-bedroom units on each side. On the east side, all 30 were left uninhabitable. On the west side, residents will be displaced until officials declare that half structurally sound, city officials said.
Three residents were taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation, including one woman pulled from the upper story by firefighters on Malden’s Ladder 3. Three firefighters also sustained minor injuries. The fire and hot spots were completely out after about ten hours.
Boston Globe / Ryan
The Boston Globe has a good photo gallery HERE.
Update: WCVB-TV has this video report with some fire footage:
Narrow street calls for expert aerial placement.
A FIRE IN THE CITY CENTER OF BORDEAUX, FRANCE, killed two young children and their mother, leaving the father in critical condition early this morning (Saturday).
The fire started around 2:30 am on the 3rd floor of the 4-story apartment building and when the fire department arrived the entire unit was well involved. The firefighters were able to make entry into the unit and rescued the father, but the children ages 3 and 5 years, along with their mother, 42, had already perished from the smoke. The father, 38, is in the intensive care unit at the hospital and is listed as “gravely injured.”
The building housed another 13 tenants and they all escaped safely, but will not be able to immediately return to their dwellings. Investigation has started on the fire cause, but the police have said that is not considered suspicious.
The fire brigade responded with 16 units and 40 firefighters on the scene.
Sud Ouest.com has the full story and more photos HERE.
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, FIREFIGHTERS HAD THEIR FIRST MULTI-ALARM BLAZE last night (Wednesday). Around 5 pm a fire was reported in the ceiling of a 3rd-floor apartment in a 4-story building. The sprawling, brick building has 160 apartments in it and all of them were required to be evacuated as the fire raced through the ceiling voids and burned the roof rafters of the 125-ft. x 350-ft. complex.
Hartford Courant / Rick Hartford photo
Approximately 170 residents were displaced and will not be permitted back into the severely damaged building. The fire is believed to have been sparked by a faulty bathroom exhaust fan, but investigations are continuing today.
WTNH-TV Ch. 8 has this video report:
Every firefighter in the city was engaged in the attack while five mutual-aid departments filled in the city stations for coverage. It took the HFD three hours to knock down the blaze.
The only injury reported was for a firefighter who slipped on the ice.
WFSB-TV has more details and additional video HERE.
The Hartford Courant has the STORY.
Squad Fire Photos has a 105-image photo gallery HERE.
Hat tip and thanks to New London County Fire Photos for additional information.
FIRE RACED THROUGH A VINYL-CLAD, WOOD FRAME apartment building in Wilmington, North Carolina, early Saturday morning. The blaze destroyed at least four units and killed one resident while injuring at least four others.
Wilmington Star News / Bowen
The alarm came in just after 3 am and the WFD made a quick knockdown, controlling the fire in 30 minutes.
Fire investigators have ruled out arson or any other criminal activity, but they have not yet conclusively identified the cause.
At least 16 units in the building were damaged to some extent, including the four that were destroyed. The apartment complex is largely populated with college students and several of the units were unoccupied last night while they are home on Christmas break.
The Wilmington Star News has the early STORY HERE.
Wilmington Fire Department WEBSITE.
Hat tip: Robert S.
Update: Video added, scroll down.
A PRE-DAWN FIRE IN STARKVILLE, MISSISSIPPI, THIS MORNING has killed nine people, six of them children, in an apartment building. The State fire marshal Mike Chaney said that the fire was discovered around 4 am Monday and that all of the victims were in the same unit where the fire broke out.
WCBI-TV
Chaney also announced that the victims were a 25-year-old woman, two 19-year-old women and children ranging in age from 2 to 6. Five of them were residents of the apartment and the other four were visitors. The coroner’s office is working to determine the cause of deaths. Officials tell WCBI-TV that there were smoke detectors in the building and they were working.
Firefighter Nation has more HERE.
The Associated Press has filed this brief video report:
Updated: Post-fire report and video added. Scroll down.
A MAJOR FIRE IN AN APARTMENT BUILDING broke out shortly after 5 am this morning near Tampa, Florida, in Palm Harbor.
ABC News
The fire was first reported at 5:19 am and has destroyed eight units in the 16-unit, two-story building so far. The response has been elevated to four alarms and is still working.
Update, 2:30 pm Eastern:
The fire heavily damaged or destroyed 12 apartments in the wood-frame structure and the roof of the building came in. All the residents made it out safely and there are no reports of any injuries.
WTVT-TV has this post-fire video report that also includes some fire footage:
A MAJOR FIRE IN AN INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA, suburb early this morning (Monday) damaged or destroyed more than 20 units in an apartment building.
WISH-TV image
When Wayne Township FD units arrived they already had heavy fire showing on the third floor and a large number of residents trapped on their balconies. An unknown-number of them were rescued by ladders, but one person was rescued from inside and was taken to the hospital in serious condition.
Early reports say that no firefighters have been injured and three residents were treated at the scene by paramedics for smoke inhalation problems.
WISH-TV had a video crew on the scene and filed this report:
AS A WIND-WHIPPED FIRE SWEPT THROUGH A 3-family dwelling in Malden, Massachusetts, early Thursday morning, one of the eight residents instinctively raced to the top floor and saved a woman and her two small children.
WHDH-TV
The fire broke out shortly after 1 am and began spreading rapidly throughout the old, wood framed home that had been converted to three apartments. WHDH-TV reports:
However, the most dramatic moment of the night came when a mother and her two children who had just moved in hours before were rescued from the top floor of the building. The families in the basement and the second floor apartments were able to get out, but the brand-new tenant and her children on the third floor were trapped.Acting on instinct, building resident Joe Scadding, his son, and another tenant raced upstairs and rescued the family. The Scadding family lost everything in the fire but said they are grateful they were able to save the lives of their new neighbors.
“I heard the girl on the first floor screaming, ‘fire, fire, fire!’ So then I just ran out of my room, ran outside…The babies, I had just met them and I knew they were up there, so I just ran around and then when I seen the fire, I just went for the doorway,” said Scadding of his heroic rescue.
WFXT-TV Ch. 25 has some brief footage of the fire:
WHDH-TV has a better video and an interview with Scadding HERE.
Fire Chief Michael Murphy said the weather hampered the firefighters’ efforts. “It was very difficult to move around, water was freezing all over the place, and the wind helped fuel the fire,” Murphy said.
THE SMALL COMMUNITY OF LORETTO, MINNESOTA, came together yesterday to help out their neighbors that were burned out Tuesday by a fire in their apartment building.
KARE-TV
The century-old, wood frame structure had been the town’s general store for many decades until it was converted into eight apartments. Seven of them were occupied Tuesday when a maintenance worker decided to use an electric heating element to thaw a frozen water pipe in the wall of the building. The heater started the fire that raced through the old structure,eventually bringing the roof in and destroying the entire building.
Because of the severity of the weather which was hovering around the zero-degree F. mark, and the inability of the town water supply to adequately provide enough fire flow, about 20 surrounding fire departments responded on the mutual-aid call. The operation set up a tanker relay and provided enough manpower to rotate the crews every 20 minutes until the fire was out.
The residents took shelter at the Choo Choo Restaurant just down the street, and almost immediately the rest of the townsfolk started pitching in to find clothing, food and cash help for the refugees, including replacing all the lost Christmas gifts that went down with the apartments.
KMSP-TV Ch. 9 has a good video report on the fire and the town’s post-fire activity to help the residents:
Hat tip: Scott A.
WNYW-TV
A MAJOR FIRE INVOLVING TWO APARTMENT BUILDINGS broke out at 5:30 am this morning (Monday) in Harrison, New Jersey (Newark area). Harrison Fire Chief Thomas Dolaghan said the fire appeared to start near the top of one of the 4-story buildings and spread quickly to the exposure on side 2 that was separated only by a narrow alleyway. This early aerial video from WNYW-TV shows the fire just as it’s spreading to the second building:
At least 18 families were evacuated from the fire building and the two exposures. Apparently everybody was able to escape safely and without injury. The fire was soon upgraded to three alarms and brought in FD’s from six neighboring communities. The fire is reported to be out at the time of this posting, but units will be on the scene mopping up for quite a while yet.
The Associated Press filed this raw video from WABC-TV that captures the partial collapse of the primary fire building:
D
NBC Philadelphia
THE SPECTACULAR AND DEVASTATING 5-ALARM FIRE that destroyed an entire 41-unit apartment building in Philadelphia Sunday morning was started by an unattended candle. PFD fire officials announced Monday that the fire was caused by a candle in a 2nd-floor unit.
They also said that 3 of the 21 injured people remain in critical condition. Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said everyone in the building has been accounted for and that the four injured firefighters have been released from the hospital.
The Associated Press filed this video report:
See the Sunday Firegeezer report on the fire HERE.
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