A large three-story home on General Pershing Street caught fire early Saturday morning, and although it took firefighters nearly two hours to bring it under control, no injuries were reported.
For details, see the news release from the New Orleans Fire Department below:
On Saturday, April 14, 2018 at 3:17 a.m. the New Orleans Fire Department (NOFD) received a 911 call reporting a fire at a home in the 1800 block of General Pershing St. The first fire company arrived on the scene at 3:23 a.m. and found a three-story wood-framed construction home with heavy smoke coming from the attic. Upon arrival, firefighters assessed the scene, taking into consideration the number of residents reported to be home at the time of the blaze, as well as the extremely large size of the residence and immediately called for a Second Alarm at 3:29 a.m.
Firefighters’ first priority was to ensure that all the residents made it out of the home safely. A primary search of the building was conducted yielding no additional residents located inside.
This fire proved to be stubborn. There were several contributing factors as to why this blaze was difficult to get control of. The size and type of construction, as well as the extremely strong winds helped to fuel this fire. Fighting a persistent blaze this size for almost an hour, as well as the heat and humidity made this a physically taxing scene for firefighters to be on. As a result a Third Alarm was called for at 4:09 a.m. to add additional personnel to the scene.
Firefighters did an outstanding job not only confining this fire to its’ place of origin and minimizing the potential for a much greater amount of damage, but also diligently searching the entire structure to ensure all residents had been safely evacuated.
No injuries were reported. The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
The New Orleans Police Department, New Orleans Emergency Medical Services, The American Red Cross and Entergy were all on the scene assisting with the mitigation of this incident. Twenty-one NOFD units carrying sixty Fire Operations personnel were on hand working diligently to bringing this fire under control at 5:11 a.m.
