ST. LOUIS – An intense overnight fire guts a vacant home in north St. Louis and threatens two other buildings on both sides of the one that caught fire.
Luckily, no injuries have been reported. Crews arrived to find no one in the home where the fire started and firefighters stayed outside of the vacant home where the fire was because of safety concerns.
Firefighters got the call right around 2:00 a.m. The fire happened on the 5000 of Kensington, just off North Kingshighway, in the Lewis Park neighborhood of north St. Louis.
Besides getting the main fire out, one of the additional priorities for firefighters was to try and keep the flames from spreading to two other vacant homes that were very close to the one that was burning. They kept the flames away from one of the other empty homes. The other one also sustained some damage.
FOX 2 spoke with Battalion Chief Mike Kilingsworth about what crews were up against when they first arrived at the scene.
“Heavy fire on all three floors, shooting out of every window, it started going through the roof,” Killingsworth explained. “And because of the heavy fire that’s involved, we’re worried about structural stability. So we will not send firefighters into that building like that.”
The battalion chief told FOX 2 that there was no gas or electricity going to the home where the fire started. A cause is still under investigation Wednesday morning.
FOX 2 will update this story with more information as it becomes available.
