{"id":140128,"date":"2026-03-17T00:26:47","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140128\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T00:26:47","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T00:26:47","slug":"red-cross-five10-flats-apartment-fire-was-largest-weve-dealt-with-in-15-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/140128\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Cross: Five10 Flats apartment fire was ‘largest we’ve dealt with’ in 15 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 The monstrous fire at a South Bethlehem apartment building on Friday displaced 135 residents \u2014 leaving the area Red Cross with its largest aid operation in 15 years, officials said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my perspective having to fairly frequently go to fire scenes, this was one of the largest in terms of the number of units that are involved,\u201d Peter Brown, executive director of the American Red Cross Pennsylvania Rivers Chapter, said Monday. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the largest fire we\u2019ve dealt with in the Lehigh Valley in at least the last 15 years, and it might be longer than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Brown, executive director of the American Red Cross Pennsylvania Rivers Chapter<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the largest fire we\u2019ve dealt with in the Lehigh Valley in at least the last 15 years, and it might be longer than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The four-alarm fire at the Five10 Flats apartment and retail complex<\/a>, 510 E. Third St., drew more than a dozen city and area agencies to assist at the scene. <\/p>\n

No injuries were reported, and residents were provided temporary hotel accommodations.<\/p>\n

\"Five10<\/p>\n

Stephanie Sigafoos<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n

A dumpster sits in front of El Jefes at the fire-damaged Five10 Flats in Bethlehem on Monday, May 5, 2025.<\/p>\n

The blaze also shuttered ground-level businesses in the building.<\/p>\n

Officials were at the fire site Monday.<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Chief Building Inspector Mike Simonson said he had met with the owners of the complex, business leaders and property restoration officials, but there was still a ways to go before more could be shared on the damage.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still waiting for the complete site assessment,\u201d Simonson said. \u201cThey\u2019re just doing some temporary shoring and things like that for some of the areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Five10<\/p>\n

Stephanie Sigafoos<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n

A worker covers fire damage on the roof of the Five10 Flats in Bethlehem on Monday, May 5, 2024.<\/p>\n

‘Quite a large loss here’<\/p>\n

Liz Wall \u2014 executive assistant with Paul Davis Restoration of Montgomery & Berks counties \u2014 said her company had 75 to 100 people working on site.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, it\u2019s just the early stages of this,\u201d Wall said of the post-fire assessment process. \u201c[It\u2019s] quite a large loss here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown, in an interview with LehighValleyNews.com, said the Red Cross has had volunteers available to assist residents with disaster-related mental health trauma, spiritual care and health services.<\/p>\n

For example, the health-services volunteers are licensed nurses who, upon request, help to replace prescription medication, eyeglasses, walkers or other medical equipment lost in such tragedies, he said. <\/p>\n

Residents are free to call for the assistance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still waiting for the complete site assessment. They\u2019re just doing some temporary shoring and things like that for some of the areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bethlehem Chief Building Inspector Mike Simonson<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are preparing a team to start doing casework, where we\u2019ll be reaching out to each of the individual tenants to talk with them more about their needs and what support they need for their recovery,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n

He said it appears all the affected residents have renters insurance policies.<\/p>\n

After a post-fire walk-through of the building with city officials, it was decided residents were to be briefly allowed back inside to grab their essential belongings.<\/p>\n

The Red Cross handed out nearly 80 plastic totes for the items, and the property manager had packing boxes available, Brown said.<\/p>\n

\"Five10<\/p>\n

Stephanie Sigafoos<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n

Workers gather in front of the Starbucks at the fire-damaged Five10 Flats in Bethlehem on Monday, May 5, 2025.<\/p>\n

On the scene<\/p>\n

The day of the fire, Brown and his team were on scene to set up a temporary evacuation point at Northampton Community College\u2019s Fowler Center directly across the street.<\/p>\n

There, they offered water, snacks and other real-time help for the residents.<\/p>\n

The Red Cross had shelter trailers and volunteers on standby just in case, Brown said, but the property management company provided residents with temporary hotel accommodations if they had nowhere else to stay for the time being.<\/p>\n

The Northampton County 911 Center was notified of the fire on Friday at 1:17 p.m., and city fire department personnel were on scene \u201cwithin 1 \u00bd minutes,\u201d according to a news release.<\/p>\n

The Red Cross had its first volunteers on site about an hour after that, and Brown pulled up at about 3:30 p.m., he said.<\/p>\n

“There were three ladder trucks; there were fire companies from all over the Lehigh Valley that had a presence. That\u2019s going to be the case when it\u2019s a four-alarm fire, but it\u2019s still really impressive to see the resources that the community can mobilize.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peter Brown, executive director of the American Red Cross Pennsylvania Rivers Chapter<\/p>\n

It still was an active fire scene with roads blocked off at that point, Brown said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat struck me immediately was just the size of the response,” he said. “There were three ladder trucks; there were fire companies from all over the Lehigh Valley that had a presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to be the case when it\u2019s a four-alarm fire, but it\u2019s still really impressive to see the resources that the community can mobilize.\u201d<\/p>\n

The fire was brought under control just before 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Five10 Flats is five stories tall, with 95 apartments on floors 2-5 and seven businesses on the first floor.<\/p>\n

One ground-floor eatery, El Jefe\u2019s Taqueria, had a sign on the front window Monday that read, \u201cSorry for the inconvenience. We will be closed until further notice!!\u201d<\/p>\n

Temporary fencing currently lines the perimeter of the building.<\/p>\n

About 4 p.m. Monday, restoration crews were on site working on the roof, even as the rain was on and off throughout the day.<\/p>\n

\"Five10<\/p>\n

Will Oliver<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

LehighValleyNews.com<\/p>\n

Displacing 135 residents and shuttering ground-level businesses until further notice, a monstrous fire at Five10 Flats in South Bethlehem on Friday, May 2, 2025, has officials left trying to make sense of the tragedy. Photo taken on May 5, 2025.<\/p>\n

Cause of fire not yet confirmed<\/p>\n

The city fire marshal\u2019s office is expected this week to release a statement on the cause of the blaze. It already confirmed it started on the building\u2019s roof.<\/p>\n

Former Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan, director of business development for Peron Development, which built Five10 Flats, did not respond to a request for comment for this report.<\/p>\n

He told LehighValleyNews.com last week that a resident\u2019s cigarette butt may be to blame for the fire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Allentown-based Pennsylvania Rivers Chapter of the Red Cross serves the counties of Berks, Columbia, Lehigh, Montour, Northampton, Northumberland, Schuylkill, Snyder and Union.<\/p>\n

To make a monetary donation to disaster-relief efforts \u2014 as 90% of the Red Cross is made up of volunteers \u2014 visit redcross.org<\/a> or call 1-800-RED CROSS (800-733-2767).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 The monstrous fire at a South Bethlehem apartment building on Friday displaced 135 residents \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76855,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64276,39528,153,155,154,64277,64278,64279,4619,64280,64281,64282,64283],"class_list":["post-140128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-american-red-cross-pennsylvania-rivers-chapter","tag-apartment-fire-in-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-fire-in-bethlehem","tag-five10-flats-fire-bethlehem","tag-five10-flats-fire-update","tag-john-callahan","tag-peter-brown-red-cross","tag-red-cross-in-the-lehigh-valley","tag-south-bethlehem-fire","tag-southside-bethlehem-fire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140128","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=140128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}