A two-alarm fire in Central City has destroyed a vacant home and severely damaged two other occupied houses.
That fire started just after 1 p.m. Saturday on Martin Luther King, Jr., Boulevard between Magnolia and Clara Streets.
According to a New Orleans Fire Department spokesperson, responding firefighters sent out the second alarm immediately after they arrived. That because, the spokesperson says, the firefighters discovered that the blaze had already spread from the one-story wood-framed structure from which it originated to neighboring properties. Neighbors told the firefighters that while no one had lived in the house for years, they had seen and reported vagrants coming in and out of the home multiple times.
In all, six people are now displaced because the fire damaged their homes. The NOFD contacted the American Red Cross so they can provide aid to those residents. None of them were injured in the fire.
Officials say they all evacuated before firefighters arrived.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
