Featured photo by LM Land, Written by Tanya Terry
At approximately 3 p.m. on Monday, Jan. 8, an abandoned building on Martin Luther King burst into flames.
Sgt. Lawrence Lamar Edwards of the Flint Fire Department told the Courier firefighters had just returned from putting out a fire at another structure at the corner of Dupont and Newall when they were called about the fire on MLK.
“So, we ran from the other fire and came to this one,” Edwards said.
Edward explained the caller said they saw black smoke coming from the second story of the building on MLK.
“When we first arrived, there was heavy black smoke coming from all the windows on the second floor,” Edwards said, describing the scene.
“We had fire showing itself from the side of the house,” he added. “We tried to get it. We tried to attack it. But there were so many different fire origin spots where the fire started at that we couldn’t chase it down. So, at that time, we pulled everybody out of the structure and went completely defensive. That means we burned it down. That’s a defensive operation. We weren’t sending people in because they’d possibly be hurt because there was so much fire. We had to let it burn down. We did try to get it, but we weren’t able to catch up to it.”
Edwards said the fire crew decided to let the structure burn down when the firefighters who were sent in got to the stairs on the second floor and were “showing different signs.”
“Smoke was coming in a different way. It was more turbulent. So, at that point, our battalion chief said it was best to pull everyone out.”
Edwards said based off what he could see, he did not think the fire was an electrical one.
“I would have to lean more toward the side of arson, but stuff does happen.”
Edwards stated he did not know of any motives any arsonist would have to burn the house up.
“But people just get bored sometimes, I guess.”
Edwards told the Courier why the fire crew assumed the house had been abandoned.
“It wasn’t no cars there. It wasn’t no sign somebody was living there. There could have been squatters living there or something like that. But we didn’t see any signs of life in there.”
Edwards estimated the house had been abandoned for at least five years.
“You kind of get upset a little because you weren’t able to put it out. But you don’t want to put your guys at risk. We had a couple of our guys get injured previously trying to stop a fire in a house that was already abandoned. So, we didn’t want to put anybody else at risk.”
Edwards told the Courier one firefighter had fallen from the second floor to the first floor in a fire that occurred before this one.
“There was a hole in the floor. He actually broke his neck and a couple other things – his collarbone and a couple other things.”
According to Edwards, the firefighter had been off work for about five months due to his injuries and had just returned on Jan. 8 to help put out the fire at the MLK structure.
“He had broken his collarbone, and C5 and C6 on the vertebrae were disconnected.”
Fortunately, no one was known to have gotten hurt during the unfortunate Jan. 8 house fire. Edwards said there was no damage to any of the nearby structures on the busy street. Only grass was burned beside the structure itself.
“We get the call, and we come and respond and do our best to put it out. It’s unfortunate that we weren’t able to get it. But a lot of times we do get it….About three years ago, the house next door caught on fire. We were able to stop the fire before the building burned up.”
Flint firefighters were also responsible for cleaning up an oil spill the same day. Fifty gallons of oil had spilled into the Flint River across the street from 1401 James P. Cole Boulevard.
Edwards revealed: “We put the boats in the water and helped the guys clean up an oil spill.”
Firefighters used a buoy to stop the oil on top of the water from getting in the rest of the water.
The source of the spill was unknown as of press time.
