One person was rushed to the hospital after an early morning fire in Homewood. It was on Hamilton Avenue between Collier Street and North Braddock Avenue
Fire crews got here very quickly, within a minute or two of the first call to 911 coming in. The nearest fire station is about a minute from here on Hamilton Avenue.
Firefighters were still here hours later – putting out hotspots.
“I go back to the back door, and the whole back of the third floor is engulfed in flames,” Alvin Dean, who lives next door to the house that caught fire, said.
Dean then knew for sure that something was very wrong.
“The whole back of the third floor – the second floor… just fire coming out of it,” Dean said.
Dean called 911. He’d already been beaten to it. A Pittsburgh fire captain said a police crew had actually noticed it and called it in.
“The next thing I know, the fire truck was coming,” Dean said.
Firefighters worked on Hamilton Avenue for hours. They fought the fire from the inside, and then from the outside after it got too dangerous.
The Pittsburgh Fire captain KDKA spoke with says one person was taken to the hospital. Dean said it was his brother.
“He couldn’t breathe; the smoke got him,” he said.
The smoke was that strong. Dean and his brother did not go into the house that caught fire – it was abandoned.
But Dean lives in the house next door. There are still some worries he has about his house.
“I got water damage from the third floor all the way down,” he said.
The fire captain KDKA spoke with said there was a partial collapse on the right side as well.
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