HARTFORD -- Firefighters had their hands full Saturday evening, when they responded to two separate structure fires within minutes of each other.
Firefighters arriving first on the scene saw heavy smoke and flames coming from the two-story home on Brook Street. The families inside immediately rushed out.
No one was injured but firefighters said that an elderly woman had to be escorted to safety.
Chief Ortiz of Hartford Fire said that the fire started on the front porch of the first floor and it quickly spread to the first floor. There were also electrical wires down outside the home which made it harder for firefighters to battle the fire.
"Due to the fact that we couldn’t really make entry the way we wanted to because of the energized wires, it did take us a significant amount of time before we were really able to put some serious water on the fire,' said Chief Ortiz.
Fire officials said that the home was a total lost and three families were displaced. The Red Cross has assisted those families.
The biggest challenge of the night was the that while the Brook Street fire was blazing, another fire just minutes before,occurred on Zion Street. No one was hurt in the Zion Street fire but all of the Hartford Fire Department units were in use.
"The greatest difficulty we had was we had a fire come in four minutes prior to the south end of Hartford," said Captain Ortiz. "So we had all of our resources depleted between both fires. We had to call mutual aid. Typically that doesn’t happen. It’s not uncommon but it’s not typical for us."
The cause of the fire on Brook Street is still unknown but officials said they do have a person of interest.