NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — After receiving a call on Monday, July 24, reporting a fire in the Carrollton neighborhood around 3:00 p.m., the New Orleans Fire Department headed there to take the flames head on.
The original call came from a woman who lives in the area who smelled smoke in the air.
When she went to see what was happening, she found a nearby house on fire.
“I was in my neighbor’s house, and he was like, ‘do you smell smoke?’ He said, ‘I smell smoke,’ and I’m like, ‘yeah I smell some smoke too.’ So I came outside and I looked to the right and our neighbor’s house, it was already in flames. It was burning up, so I hurried up and called 911,” witness Dedra Wilborn said.
When the firefighters arrived on the scene at about 3:30 p.m., the flames kept spreading, moving to a second house and then quickly to a third, engulfing each one.
While fighting fires is already a hot job, the mid-90-degree temperatures forced the team to endure an even hotter battle.
“As you can imagine, it is difficult and it does tax the staffing, so we do have to get extra help. We get our rehab unit, the unit that carries water, and they do monitoring of the guys’ vitals and all that stuff. We get them out early so that we can set that up and get them out of the sun and start getting them cooled down and everything else,” NOFD Deputy Chief David Castle said.
The battle lasted about one hour, needing 23 NOFD units and 63 NOFD personnel to complete the job; all of whom were able to stop the fire from spreading anymore in this neighborhood.
“I mean it was terrifying because the fire was obviously spreading, so you know my boyfriend and I was just getting ourselves together just in case; and we were just two houses away, and it was just crazy,” witness Tara Loftis said.
NOFD officials said was reported, a firefighter who received a cut on his hand that will require stitches.
They also said seven residents were displaced as a result of the fire.
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