Olivia M. Miller
LNP, Lancaster, Pa.
(TNS)
Mar. 14—Crews responded Monday evening to a fire involving several row homes on North Plum Street in Lancaster city.
Emergency crews responded to the 500 block of North Plum Street around 5:45 p.m. for the report of a residential fire. The block is closest to the Lancaster Science Factory and Cork Factory Hotel. A dispatcher with Lancaster County-Wide Communications said the building was reportedly vacant.
All seven houses appeared to have been involved. As of 7 p.m., there were more than 20 emergency crews dispatched to the fire, according to Lancaster County-Wide Communications. Dispatch marked the fire as under control as of 8:33 p.m.
A dispatcher with Lancaster County-Wide Communications said the fire left four adults and two children displaced.
Fire officials at the scene declined to comment, saying city officials would likely hold a news conference sometime Tuesday. It is not immediately clear which house the fire started in and what caused it.
The fire is in the same block where 17 residents were displaced from 7 row homes in September 2019 after inspectors condemned the aging buildings. Engineers discovered subsoil problems which caused foundations of the set of row homes, extending from 523 to 535 N. Plum St., to shift, LNP previously reported.
In 2020, city officials were no closer to lifting the condemnation orders on the homes.
Luz Martinez, 65, lives nearby and said she hasn't seen anything suspicious near the homes recently. She remembered police chasing kids out of the home about two years ago and putting fences up to keep people out. She said police came back for reports of kids in the area about a year ago, but the only recent activity she saw was a developer doing inspections.
Martinez also said her power went out around 6:30 p.m. and power appears to be out at other homes in the vicinity. PPL's outage map indicates 2,798 customers are without power at the scene of the fire and the surrounding area due to a tripped breaker or blown fuse. It is not immediately clear if the outages were a result of the fire.
As of Tuesday morning, power was restored to all customers in the area.
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