Justin Smith/NHFire Twitter
An overnight fire on Elm Street injured three firefighters and displaced seven adults after spreading to a next-door house.
Here’s what happened, according to Assistant Fire Chief Orlando Marcano:
The three-alarm fire began on the second floor of a two-family, two-and-a-half story home at 934 Elm St. at 12:40 a.m. A resident called it in, saying it started in the kitchen.
Two crews arrived. One brought a water line into the second floor. Another used it to extinguish flames that had started lapping at the outside of the house next door.
“That saved that house,” Marcano said of the second line.
Justin Smith/NHFire Twitter
The smoke was heavy inside 934 Elm as the fire extended to the third floor. Firefighters went to a staircase, which was in bad condition. One firefighter fell through a stair. His colleagues brought a six-foot “Dinky” ladder to create a bridge so they could make it to the third floor.
By 1:40 a.m., it was deemed a three-alarm fire. More reinforcements were called in.
“At this point the guys were spent,” said Marcano, noting that crews are generally rotated every 20 minutes when they’re battling a fire. He praised his crews’ “heroic work.”
By then 60 firefighters were on scene from 20 different crews. They brought the fire under control by 2:18 a.m.
The firefighter who fell through the stair suffered some “minor scrapes” and went to the hospital for evaluation, as did a second firefighter, who had minor burns on his neck from some embers and a third who has back pain. A civilian went to the hospital for evaluation for smoke inhalation.
The Red Cross is helping the house’s seven occupants — two adults who lived on the first floor, five who lived on the upper floors — find new lodgings for now. The occupants of the next-door house were able to return inside.
City land records list Michael & Cleo Peterson of Fair Haven Heights as the owner of the building, which was constructed in 1945.