ALBANY, NY - On March 18th at 12:09 A.M., City of Albany dispatchers began to take multiple calls for 39 Ver Planck Street, reporting that the back of the house was well-involved. Engines 10, 7 and 11, Trucks 3 and 2, Rescue 1, the rescue squad, Mohawk Ambulance Service, and battalion one were dispatched to the scene.

As units were responding to the scene, a thick heavy column of smoke and a significant glow from the fire was visible from Central Avenue. Truck 3 arrived on scene to a two-story wood-frame structure with heavy smoke throughout and heavy fire pushing from the rear of the structure. Engine 10 took up a position behind Truck 3 and deployed a one-and-three-quarter-inch hand line to the back door. Truck 3 transmitted the Signal 30 for a working structure fire and requested the frequency to be dedicated.

Truck 3 was able to determine that everybody was out of the house, and firefighters continued to pull another one-and-three-quarter-inch hand line to the front door. Firefighters deployed a two-and-a-half-inch hand line to the rear of the structure, as they had a heavy fire condition pushing up the back of the structure. Firefighters called for water to the hand line and quickly began to knock down the heavy fire condition. Firefighters made entry to the front door of the structure where they had heavy smoke banked down to the floor and a significant fire condition pushing from the rear of the structure inside of the building and out of the 'Charlie' side of the building. Firefighters continued to utilize a one-and-three-quarter-inch hand line and conduct aggressive interior tactics to bring the incident under control. As firefighters were working inside, additional firefighters conducted a primary search and notified command that the search was negative. Firefighters on the second-floor of the building began to vent the structure to release some of the superheated toxic gases.

Firefighters in the rear of the building called the fire under control on the exterior portion of the structure and shortly after, firefighters on the interior portion of the structure called the incident under control. Firefighters began to conduct extensive overhaul of the severely damaged home. Command requested Mohawk ambulance to place the fire victims from the home into the back of the ambulance to keep them warm. Fire investigators arrived on scene and conducted their investigation into the fire. No injuries were reported, and firefighters went back into service later that morning. The Red Cross was contacted for the fire victims, as the home was a total loss.