By Megan Guza
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
HOMESTEAD, Pa. — Five firefighters injured battling a massive blaze Saturday in Homestead continued recovering at home Monday, according to an update from Allegheny County officials.
The injuries came during a four-hour effort to douse flames that erupted in a tightly packed neighborhood along East 17th Avenue. The fire began in one house around 9:30 a.m. and spread to two adjacent multi-family homes.
It was originally reported that two firefighters fell through the roof of one of the homes, though the update Monday from Matt Brown, chief of county emergency services, indicated they fell through the first floor into the basement.
Both firefighters were from Munhall Volunteer Fire Company #4, officials said. They both suffered minor-to-moderate burns and “general pains/bumps” from the fall, though Chief Brown noted that one might have returned to the hospital for suspected broken ribs that weren’t originally detected.
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Two other firefighters suffered shoulder injuries, including one who was injured in the rescue of the two Munhall firefighters, authorities said. A fifth firefighter reported difficulty breathing as the fire was brought under control. It was not clear what departments those firefighters belonged to.
All were released from the hospital by Sunday, Chief Brown said.
The fire was declared to be under control at 1 p.m., more than four hours after the first 911 calls.
Chief Brown said firefighters were hampered by temperatures in the teens and winds up to 20 mph that froze water lines. Fire companies from throughout the area that responded to the blaze had to get creative, Chief Brown said.
“Luckily, with the gridded tightness of this neighborhood, there are a lot of fire hydrants to choose from,” he said. “So they’ve had to go to some other extents to other places to get their water supplies.”
It was so cold that some fire hoses froze solid, to the point that they couldn’t be coiled up as firefighters completed their work, the chief said.
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Mr. Brown estimated that 100 firefighters, many of them volunteers, battled the blaze. Such a large response is crucial in cold weather, he said, to ensure that personnel are rotated frequently out of the cold.
“These are people that dropped what they were doing at 9:30 in the morning, ran to the station and got their gear and headed to the scene,” he said. “It was a very quick response time, and very good work with all the crews under extreme conditions and cold.”
The Allegheny County Fire Marshal continues to investigate.
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