OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. -- Eyewitness News has learned that a firefighter was injured while battling a blaze in Old Saybrook on Monday.
The fire was reported around noon at a home on Otis Drive.
Channel 3 Eyewitness News reporter Kevin Hogan reported from the scene that firefighter Joe Johnson was injured after being pushed down the stairs from the home's second story by a flashback fire.
Johnson told police that he was blown off his feet, did a backward somersault down a flight of stairs, landing on his air tank.
Hogan reported that the home was undergoing renovations at the time of the fire, and that a plumber had noticed smoke and tore back a wall.
"I called 911 because everyone was trying to put the fire out with buckets," said worker Christine Howley. "It was too involved at that point."
Firefighters said that the flames moved quickly through the home and that departments from multiple towns responded to the blaze.
"One second there was just so much smoke you couldn't see. Flames were out -- I was standing out here, the flames were everywhere. It just wasn't in one spot," Howley said.
Johnson was being evaluated at a shoreline clinic Monday evening with non-life-threatening injuries.
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