Dog dies in multi-alarm fire in Frankford section
Firefighters were battling a four-alarm fire Saturday night in the Frankford section. No injuries or evacuations were reported.
It was quiet in one little pocket of Frankford on Saturday night, right up until the moment that an explosion rattled nearby homes.
Robyn and Bill, a married couple who live in a tidy rowhouse on the 1300 block of Church Street, opened their front door and saw two mechanics darting out of a long stretch of warehouses across the street, on Adams Avenue.
“Call the fire department!” one of the men shrieked.
Another explosion followed, then another, and flames began to light up the night sky as the fire tore through Van’s Exclusive Auto and some adjoining offices.
“You could feel the heat from here," Robyn, who didn’t want to share her last name, said on Sunday afternoon as she stood on her front stoop, next to a thank-you poster she’d left outside for first responders. “We were up all night.”
Firefighters were called to the scene of what would become a four-alarm fire at 9:14 p.m. It took them until 11:40 p.m. to get the blaze under control. Afterward, they discovered that a dog had died inside the auto shop.
The owner of the auto repair shop, Varien Harris, told NBC10 he’d had the business about nine years, and had just left before the fire started.
“My dog was in there. My dog burned up alive,” he said. “All my stuff. That was my livelihood, you know what I mean? That’s how I take care of my family. And now I lost it.”
Harris, who later told CBS3 that his dog’s name was Queenie, didn’t respond to an additional request for comment.
Authorities said they believe the fire was ignited when an electrical socket caught fire and quickly spread. Workers had been performing electrical work. All were able to escape without injury.
Firefighters remained at the scene throughout much of Sunday, dousing hot spots as kids ran around nearby Deni playground. A pair of twisted and charred cars sat inside the auto shop, amid blackened debris.