{"id":122134,"date":"2026-02-24T15:32:34","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/122134\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T15:32:34","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T15:32:34","slug":"man-charged-in-allentown-fire-that-spread-through-rowhomes-thursday-led-to-residents-evacuation-lehigh-valley-regional-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/122134\/","title":{"rendered":"Man charged in Allentown fire that spread through rowhomes Thursday, led to residents’ evacuation | Lehigh Valley Regional News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A rowhouse fire in the 700 block of Cedar Street spread to around six neighboring homes Thursday night.<\/p>\n

A man has been charged for his alleged role in the fire.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Blaze spreads through rowhomes, as firefighters battle flames for hours<\/a><\/p>\n

Santos Mota-Ramirez, age 60, of Allentown, has been charged.<\/p>\n

Mota-Ramirez faces around 9 charges.<\/p>\n

According to police documents, Mota-Ramirez is being charged with criminal attempt of criminal homicide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

They state that he is charged with a felony for intentionally attempting to cause the death of two people: Nohemi Guzman-De Santos and Niovel Lopez-Gutierrez.<\/p>\n

According to police, he is also being charged with aggravated assault.<\/p>\n

The documents state that he attempted to stab Nohemi and then started a fire within 721 Cedar Street, where Niovel was present.<\/p>\n

His charges also include arson, recklessly endangering a person, causing catastrophe, and additional counts of arson.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The documents state that he allegedly did commit the acts with the purpose of destroying or damaging an inhabited building or occupied structure of another, namely Nohemi Guzman-De Santos.<\/p>\n

Police state that he began the fire, which spread to six adjoining homes.<\/p>\n

\"Row<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jayson Wagner | for WFMZ-TV<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Neighbors say residents evacuated, electricity turned off due to rowhome fire<\/a><\/p>\n

Santos Mota-Ramirez is awaiting his preliminary hearing and is being held in the Lehigh County Jail with a $750,000 bail.<\/p>\n

According to the documents, police arrived at 721 Cedar Street for a domestic disturbance report at around 4:20 p.m. Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Patrol Officers located the victim, Nohemi Guzman-De Santos, who police say appeared to have been assaulted as she had redness to her face and neck.<\/p>\n

Police entered the unit after being told that the man who assaulted her was within the residence.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Police state that Santos Mota-Ramirez was entering the kitchen from the back of the residence and an active fire could be seen behind him.<\/p>\n

Mota-Ramirez was then detained inside the home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The documents state that the fire within the unit then began to spread throughout the residence and later into other units.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Row<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mike Nester | for WFMZ-TV<\/p>\n

Police say that Niovel Lopez-Gutierrez also lives there and was in the basement at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lopez-Gutierrez is said to have been trapped in the basement at the time and was rescued through the basement window by the Allentown Fire Department.<\/p>\n

Santos Mota-Ramirez was interviewed and according to police, he advised that he was attempting to stab Nohemi to death.<\/p>\n

According to the documents, Mota-Ramirez also admitted to lighting the building on fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Everyone made it out of the buildings alive.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Four firefighters were sent to the hospital with minor injuries. Three people were sent to the hospital, and one is in critical condition.<\/p>\n

The documents say that six homes were affected, and a few more had no power.<\/p>\n

About 30 people had been forced from their homes. People who had nowhere to go were staying warm on a LANTA bus on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Rivers Chapter of the American Red Cross assisted 12 people who were impacted by this fire in Allentown.<\/p>\n

Red Cross caseworkers say they will continue to help those affected in the coming days to work on a longer-term recovery plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A rowhouse fire in the 700 block of Cedar Street spread to around six neighboring homes Thursday night.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232,31,433,805],"class_list":["post-122134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-area","tag-crime","tag-lehigh-county","tag-lehighvalley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}