82 Howard Avenue — @NewHavenFire pic.twitter.com/W2l2FVwvAu
— Joe Tomaso (@JoeTomaso) January 3, 2020
A Thursday night fire in the Hill displaced nine adults and four children, and resulted in two of those tenants sent to the hospital with minor smoke-related injuries.
Asst. Fire Chief Orlando Marcano told the Independent Friday morning that roughly 30 city firefighters responded to the box-alarm fire at 82 Howard Ave. at 7:05 p.m. Thursday.
The blaze was a “small room and content fire” on the third floor, he said, meaning that the flames were contained to a single room and did not spread to the rest of the building.
A total of 13 people were displaced from the two-story, nine-unit apartment house because of smoke and water damage. Two adults were transported to Yale New Haven Hospital for evaluation of minor smoke-related injuries, Marcano said.
Firefighters helped one woman get out safely from the third floor.
According to city land records, the Hill property is owned by landlord Donald Gaudio.
Marcano said the Red Cross was on scene to provide emergency housing support for the displaced. City firefighters declared the blaze a “working fire” at 7:10 p.m., five minutes after the box alarm came in. Marcano said the firefighters had the fire under control by 7:28 p.m.
Meanwhile, fire officials are waiting for results of tests to determine the cause of a Christmas morning fire at the vacant former Walter Camp House on Chapel Street in the Dwight neighborhood. A prominent local landlord recently acquired the house with plans to redevelop it into micro-apartments. (Read Tom Breen’s story about that here.) A key question will be whether an accelerant was present at the scene.
