No one was killed or injured in the large fire.
On Tuesday morning shortly after eight o’clock, a large fire broke out at a Squirrel Hill apartment building on Forward Avenue in Pittsburgh. The building was nearly 100 years old.
Pittsburgh firefighters and other first responders rushed to the scene to fight the fire, which was declared under control shortly after one o’clock in the afternoon.
Pittsburgh Fire Chief Darryl Jones said at one point, 73 firefighters were on the scene fighting the flames.
“There was one [firewall], but it was defeated. So it was going across from right to left as you face the building. The firewall was going from front to back in one wing of the building. The roof is burned off the building,” he said.
There were no deaths or injuries associated with the fire, public safety officials reported.
Around 10 o’clock in the morning, the fire caused a large portion of the roof to collapse. Part of the building’s structure also collapsed, but firefighters were out of the way as it fell.
The fire is suspected to have started in a kitchen on the third floor of the building before spreading across the roof. An investigation is still ongoing, but a reported electrical fire in the basement of the building might have made the situation more dangerous.
As the building collapsed, crews were ordered out of the structure. They began utilizing aerial trucks with ladders to put out the fire.
“This is just one of those ones that we have to be patient, and because of the partial collapse, we have to consider that the whole building is suspect now. I can’t send my guys in and all that water you see going in its weight – that’s tons and tons of water, a live load that we put into this building that this building was not designed to hold,” said Jones.
Residents were evacuated by firefighters, who went door-to-door telling them to leave the building.
Out of a total of 44 units in the apartment building, about 30 units were occupied.
Two cats were rescued by firefighters, but a third was found dead after residents had to leave their pets behind in the evacuation.
“It’s kind of surreal, honestly. I wasn’t on the third floor, like I said, so I wasn’t in immediate danger but seeing them work on it, and then seeing it look like it calmed down for a bit and then flare up, then suddenly the roof collapsed. It’s a lot to take in all at once,” one resident said.
Residents described smoke billowing from the building. The Red Cross and Salvation Army also responded to the scene.
The Red Cross opened an emergency shelter for residents that lost everything in the fire.
