Contributed photo
A three-alarm fire at 92 Chapel St. on Thursday.
A three-alarm fire at a Fair Haven commercial garage and appliance repair shop with an illegal gas line left four firefighters injured and 26 people from adjacent houses displaced.
That fire took place at 92 Chapel St. on Thursday.
Assistant Fire Chief Dan Coughlin said that city firefighters got a call at 1:21 p.m. about a reported garage fire.
When the Fair Haven firefighting companies got to the scene, “they realized that it was a very large commercial garage with heavy fire and heavy smoke that covered the entire street. Visibility was zero on the street.”
He said that the responding firefighters attempted an “aggressive interior attack” but were pushed back by the high heat.
They also soon discovered that the commercial building — which did not have any people inside at the time that they arrived — was filled with “dozens and dozens of appliances. Refrigerators, stoves, air conditioning units.” Over the course of the blaze, he said, the second floor collapsed into the first. It took roughly six hours to bring the fire under control.
Coughlin said that four city firefighters were injured while responding to the fire: two suffered back injuries, two suffered from heat exhaustion. All four were transported to the hospital, and all four have subsequently been released from the hospital. The two with back injuries are still off duty, while the two with heat exhaustion are now back on the job.
City Emergency Operations Director Rick Fontana said that the blaze displaced a total of 26 people from two adjacent three-family houses, which did not suffer from any fire damage but which did get hit by “a good amount of water in the basement.” The Red Cross helped relocate 19 of those 26 displaced residents, while seven went by themselves to stay with family.
Fontana also said that, in addition to the four firefighters who were injured, one person from one of the adjacent houses suffered a burn to his right hand and arm. The man refused an ambulance transport at the scene, Fontana said, but was reported to have ultimately received medical treatment.
Coughlin said that city firefighters returned to the burned out commercial garage on Friday morning and “found an illegal gas line that was leaking.” The gas company fixed that line Friday morning.
He said that the fire department does not yet know what the source of the fire was, and he anticipated a lengthy investigation to come.
My condolences and best wishes to all the firefighters who were injured and the residents displaced as a result of this fire. I hope everyone gets back on their feet and recovers soon.