HARTFORD – Around 11 a.m., the Hartford Fire Department had to reach out to its neighbors. “Bring East Hartford and West Hartford into the city” was the radio call.
Fire officials were requesting that other departments bring people and equipment to standby at capitol city firehouses that were empty, because Hartford’s Bravest were battling three fires simultaneously.
Crews were still dousing hotspots at a 2-alarm fire that started around 8 a.m. in a vacant 3-story apartment building on Edwards Street. Others were were trying to knock down a fire just about a mile up Albany Avenue on Adams Street. Still others were fighting a blaze at an auto body shop at 639 Windsor Street in the North Meadows.
So far, no injuries have been reported in any of the fires.
On top of the intense workload, firefighters are working in temperatures that barely rose above freezing even hours after sunup.
The fire on Edwards Street was in a vacant building, the second fire at that location in two weeks.
“We typically get an uptick in building fires–particularly abandoned buildings–when homeless breach the building and create small fires to get warm,” said Lt. Paul Cicero of the Hartford Police Department. “Again, most of these are ‘accidental’ as opposed to ‘arson.'”
All three fires under investigation.
