Florida Fire Ignites Concern For Lack Of Hydrants

March 16, 2009
A massive fire in Delray Beach burned a house to its core Saturday night.

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. --

A massive fire in Delray Beach burned a house to its core Saturday night.

The fire ignited on La Reina Road, starting in the garage and quickly spreading to the rest of the house at about 6 p.m.

"Once the garage doors burned down and the roof was on fire, the wind coming in basically fed it and pushed it to the rest of the attic," said Deputy Chief of Palm Beach Fire Rescue Steve Delai.

More than 30 Palm Beach County Fire Rescue units were called to the scene and sprayed the home with their water supply.

The large flames drained their water supply, and firefighters ran into problems when they found no hydrants in the community.

"They had to change their focus and try to secure a water supply," Delai said. "This area has no fire hydrants whatsoever."

The lack of fire hydrants is now a major concern for residents since this is the second fire theyve seen in their neighborhood.

One of the issues is that the community has no access to the city's water supply, only private lakes and wells. So firefighters had to draft water from those lakes and wells through hoses to fight the flames.

"Unfortunately, that takes time," Delai said. "During that time we had very little water to actually put on the fire itself, and the result is what you see behind me."

Saturday night wasn't the first incident in the neighborhood. Firefighters said they've encountered the problem before.

"It's very horrible," resident Beth Egan said. "We had another incident about two or three years ago. Another home burned down for that same reason."

No one was injured. Investigators are still looking into the cause of the fire.

Copyright 2009 by WPBF.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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