Firefighters make quick work of Lansdowne blaze
LANSDOWNE >> Firefighters worked with haste Monday afternoon to combat a third-floor fire under the assumption that an occupant was trapped inside the home.
Luckily, those fears were stamped out — along with the fire itself — once family members of the home at 93 E. Stratford Ave. informed firefighters that all residents were accounted for and unharmed.
Firefighters responded to the blaze around 2:43 p.m. Monday, arriving to find the windows on the third floor purging plumes of black smoke. The initial reports of an entrapped individual in the single family home had calls for ladder companies to expedite the search process.
“Initially there was a report of entrapment on the third floor. It was uncertain whether the occupant was home,” said Lansdowne Assistant Fire Chief Glenn Baker. “The other occupant thought that they may be (home), but they were not.”
The search began from the top down, as Baker said searches for occupants during a fire begins from the origin outward. Ladder companies from Yeadon and Upper Darby Fire, the Cardington-Stonehurst Ladder 36 outfit, assembled 30-foot ladders on the side of the building and delicately climbed upwards through phone and cable lines to get to the third floor.
“No victims were found and later it was confirmed from residents that no one was home,” Baker said.
Residents could be seen embraced and grieving in the aftermath of the fire as crews continued to put water on the hotspots while others upstairs pitched out the window a charred boxspring and mattress that had be reduced to blackened rubble.
Baker said the blazed was contained to a single room.
The fire remains under
Lansdowne Fire Co. was assisted by departments in East Lansdowne, Yeadon, CardingtonStonehurst and Darby Borough. investigation.