HOLYOKE — Emergency crews battled an attic fire in a two-family home on Brown Avenue on Wednesday night.
According to Holyoke Fire Capt. Kevin Cavagnac, firefighters were called to 45-47 Brown Ave. at around 9:20 p.m. for a report of a fire. One person in the building escaped before police arrived and no one was injured, he said.
Cavagnac said a Holyoke Fire Department fire investigator arrived on scene, but was not allowed to begin an inspection because crews had not yet declared the fire extinguished. On Thursday morning, Cavagnac said that the cause of the fire was determined to be an electrical issue.
“It burned completely through the roof to the attic,” Cavagnac said. “They’re spraying water straight into the attic and it’s coming down the front stairs.”
Snow had not covered any of the nearby fire hydrants and crews were getting adequate water flow, Cavagnac said.
An owner of the home, who did not want to be identified by name, said she and her husband had bought the house about a month ago and had planned to live there. The person in the house at the time the fire broke out was a cleaner working on a lower floor who was alerted to the flames by a neighbor across the street, she said.
William Ramirez, of Brown Avenue, said he was in his home nearby when he saw large flames coming from the top of the house. Ramirez said he saw a crew from one fire truck extinguish the majority of the blaze, which he said encompassed the entire roof. From the street, the roof looked partially missing as fire crews continued to douse the attic with water.
“You know when you first turn on a charcoal grill with the gas?” Ramirez said. “It looked just like that.”
Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com. Reporter Dusty Christensen contributed to this story.