ALBANY, NY - On July 27th at 1:27 A.M., the City of Albany’s Fire Department was dispatched to 6 Thornton Street for a reported structure fire with multiple houses on fire after Albany Police officers on patrol discovered the house fires. Police officers immediately sprang into action and began to evacuate the houses around the fire, as the fire was spreading quickly. Engine one, engine two, rescue two, truck two, engine seven, the rescue squad, Mohawk Ambulance Service, and the battalion chief responded to the scene. The dispatcher notified the battalion chief that there were police on scene and that they confirmed a working structure fire.

Engine two arrived on scene and notified the dispatcher that they had a working structure fire and transmitted to signal thirty, requesting the frequency to be dedicated. With heavy smoke pushing from two houses, firefighters deployed multiple hand lines to the front of the structure. Firefighters notified the dispatcher that the houses were vacant and boarded up. As firefighters began to stretch the hand lines to the front door of the structure, the truck company quickly positioned itself in the driveway of the house with inches to spare between the fence and the truck company. Police officers on scene were able to successfully evacuate all of the surrounding structures and get the remaining residents in those homes out safely. The commanding officer on scene requested the next due engine to grab the hydrant, lay into engine two and establish a water supply. As firefighters worked, heavy smoke continued to push from the structure and firefighters made their way inside and discovered a significant fire condition on the second-floor and first-floor.

Through extremely aggressive firefighting tactics, firefighters made a push throughout the structure, driving back the fire, and began to bring the incident under control before it could spread to any other structure. As firefighters were working on the second-floor, heavy smoke began to push from the attic area of the structure and out of the vent hole on the side of the building, Command requested firefighters to begin to pull the ceilings to get access to the attic area. Due to the construction and holes in the floor, firefighters had difficulties gaining access to the attic area. As the smoke on the roof began to become more significant, heavy fire blew out the hole towards the bucket of the truck company and the operator of the bucket backed the bucket away from the building. Firefighters on the exterior portion of the structure grabbed a two-and-a-half-inch hand line and drove back the heavy fire condition. Heavy fire began to push from the 'alpha/bravo' corner of the roof.

Firefighters established a water supply to the truck company and made their way up inside of the bucket and began to knock down all of the fire in the attic area. After doing so, firefighters made their way to the front of the building and began to pull apart significant portions of the siding and the roof area. Firefighters were able to bring the fire under control and keep it to the first two buildings. Firefighters worked for an extensive period of time overhauling the badly damaged vacant structure to make sure that there were no remaining hotspots. Firefighters on scene worked until the early hours of the morning bringing the incident fully under control. At this time, the fire is under investigation and no injuries were reported.