1 Dead After Elm Street Fire

(Updated) One man died and nine people were displaced after a two-alarm fire at a house on Elm Street.

That fire started at around 6:22 a.m. Sunday, according to New Haven Fire Department (NHFD) Assistant Chief Daniel Coughlin.

On Monday, city police spokesperson Officer Christian Bruckhart identified the fatal fire’s victim as 32-year-old New Havener Kenneth Mims.

Coughlin said firefighters responded Sunday morning to a call for a ​“porch fire” at the three-family house at 516 Elm St.

“When they got on scene, they had heavy, large volumes of fire on the second and third floors,” he said. 

They then engaged in a ​“quick, aggressive attack” of the blaze, succeeded in preventing the flames from spreading to an adjacent house, and searched the property for people stuck inside.

Coughlin said that the Dixwell station’s Truck 4 firefighters came across the victim, later identified as Mims, in a bedroom on the second floor. He was already unconscious, Coughlin said, and had likely ​“expired” before firefighters found him. 

The firefighters removed the victim from the building, and paramedics performed CPR on scene. Mims was then taken by ambulance to Yale New Haven Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Amidst the tragedy of a life lost, Coughlin said, city firefighters did an ​“incredible” job combating the heavy fire. ​“They saved the neighboring house.” He said it took around 50 minutes to get the fire under control. No firefighters were injured.

Coughlin said that the cause of the fire is still under investigation. Because a person died during the fire, the state fire marshal will also investigate this incident. 

According to city land records, 516 Elm St. is owned by 56 – 58 Avon Street LLP, a holding company controlled by Bethany-based landlord Jianchao Xu.

On Monday, Kenneth Mims’s sister, Melissa, created a GoFundMe page for her family. ​“I’m coming to y’all with a heavy heart on behalf my Mother and 16-year brother who lost everything yesterday in that explosive fire that claimed one of my brother’s life,” she wrote. She described Sunday’s fatal fire as a ​“terrible life-changing situation,” and asked for donations to help the family buy clothes and other household items.

And in an interview Monday with News 12 Connecticut, Mims’s father, Fred Grant, said that Mims was the father of teenage twins.

“Everybody from Norwalk to Hartford — and all across Connecticut — knew and loved Ken, and their lives are better because of that,” Grant told News 12. ​“I will never be the same again — never.”