Hartford

Fast-Moving Fire Rips Through Hartford Apartment Building

Six people awoken by flames in their Hartford apartment building early Sunday morning are now looking for a new place to stay.

Fire broke out at 67 Charlotte Street at 2 a.m. It didn’t take long for the fire to grow out of control, spreading from the back porch to the front of the building.

“This type of a fire, it’s very rapidly moving fire. You’ve got the porches which will provide for an opportunity for the fire to extend rapidly to all the floors,” Hartford Fire Deputy Chief Ian Tenney said.

The first firefighters on the scene rushed to the second floor after receiving a report that someone was trapped inside. It turned out to be a false alarm. All six occupants escaped without injury, according to authorities.

“All occupants were accounted for. At that point in time we had a partial collapse in the rear, the rear porches. We made the decision at that point to remove all the companies,” Tenney said.

With the porch collapsing and the third floor caving in, crews were forced to fight the flames from the outside. Four hours after the fire first broke out, crews were still putting out hot spots and the charred skeleton of the structure smoldered in the sub-freezing air.

“The cold certainly doesn’t help. It produces an increased risk of slips and falls to anybody operating around the fire scene,” Tenney said.

Tenney says no firefighters were injured. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

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