Syracuse, N.Y. – Almost 50 Syracuse Firefighters responded to a house fire on the North side of the city Friday night. At approximately 7:29 p.m. crews were dispatched to 1516 Spring Street for a reported structure fire. Engine 2 and Truck 2 (2300 Lodi Street) were the first to arrive. They reported finding a 2 story wood framed, multi-family home with heavy fire coming from multiple windows on the second floor. Power lines had burned away and were lying on a chain link fence. An extra Engine and Truck were requested by Car 2. Flames were impinging on an exposure building at 1518 Spring Street. This was another two story wood framed multi-family dwelling.
Hand lines were stretched into the exposure building and heavy master streams and hand lines were used to knock down the fire at 1516 Spring Street. National Grid crews were on the scene quickly and were able to cut the power to the downed line by manually climbing the utility pole. The rear half of the main fire building had a second roof, also known as a rain roof, built over the original part of the building. This created a void space that was difficult to access to suppress hidden fire.
The Red Cross is providing shelter for the 7 people that were living in two apartments in the main fire building. 4 occupants of the first floor were home when the fire started. 3 second floor occupants were not home at the time of the fire. The exposure building had 4 apartments; one of those apartments was unoccupied. Those occupants are also being helped by the Red Cross tonight. All of the occupants of both buildings were able to escape unharmed. Fire Investigators are searching for an origin and a cause of the blaze. Syracuse Police and AMR were also on the scene.
