PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Heavy smoke coated a neighborhood in Francisville for nearly four hours Monday.
Firefighters say they were alerted of the fire just before 4 p.m. when someone knocked on the door of Ladder 1, which reopened in December after being out of service for nearly 15 years.
Philadelphia Fire Department Assistant Deputy Commissioner Derek Bowmer said a large building near 16th Street and Ridge Avenue burst into flames before spreading to a multi-story building next door.
About 100 firefighters were on the scene battling flames from the two-alarm fire.
A man who says he lived in the building told KYW there were rooms for rent inside.
Bowmer says a few people were evacuated and tended to, and everyone inside was accounted for. There were no reports of injury.
PECO reportedly cut power to that area around 5 p.m., impacting more than 700 people.
As the sun set, water was still being poured onto the flames. Crews finally had the fire under control just before 7:30 p.m.
The cause of the fire is not yet known.
In 2022, Mike Bresnan, president of Philadelphia Fire Fighter's Union Local 22, asked President Joe Biden for money to put Ladder 1 at 15th and Parrish streets back into service. They say it would have been the first fire company to respond to the Fairmount fire that killed three adults and nine children on Jan. 5, 2022.
Ladder 1 was one of seven companies shut down by then-Mayor Michael Nutter during the 2008 recession. It was the fifth to reopen with a federal grant in December.