NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — It was a busy morning for the New Orleans Fire Department as crews battled back-to-back blazes in the early morning hours of Wednesday, February 16.
NOFD reports just after 3:30, crews responded to a call out of the 3200 block of Toledano Street in Broadmoor. When they arrived, firefighters found a vacant single-family home heavily engulfed in flames.
The fire became even more dangerous when officers noticed flames starting to spread to both homes on either side of the structure. It was then that a second alarm was called to the scene.
With 45 crew members battling the blaze, the fire was under control around 4:15 a.m.
While no one was injured in the incident, the severity of the fire significantly damaged one of the homes next door, displacing five people living in the building. The American Red Cross has been requested to aid in assisting the residents.
The home on the other side of the fire only sustained minor damage from the radiant heat.
Just as fire crews were wrapping up the aftermath of the Toledano fire, NOFD reports crews responded to another fire in Algiers nearly half an hour later.
Around 4:45, crews responded to the fire at the Life Storage Facility in the 3200 block of General Degaulle Avenue. A second alarm was called in as the fire began to violently spread through the storage facility’s insulation and the shared roof across units.
According to NOFD, the structure’s congestion of units combine with the unpredictability of each unit’s contents made the fire more difficult to control. A third alarm was called in nearly an hour later at 5:45.
Officials told WGNO that because of flames continuing to spread across the lining of the structure’s ceiling, crews would extinguish the blaze only to find out another hotspot had emerged.
With more than 20 NOFD units and nearly 55 fire personnel, the fire was finally controlled around 8:30 a.m. No injuries were reported.
Authorities continue to investigate the cause of both fires.
