Fire damages two Long Beach homes

Multiple fire crews extinguished a house fire in Long Beach that spread to a neighboring house, and seriously damaged both early Sunday morning.

According to Chief Richard Corbett, the department first received a call reporting a house fire at 122 Roosevelt Blvd., at 1:35 a.m. The fire spread to a home at 123 Taft Ave., located directly behind the Roosevelt Boulevard home.

Corbett ordered a call for a second alarm and the Point Lookout-Lido, Island Park, Oceanside and Baldwin fire departments operated at the scene of the two houses.

“Both houses experienced extensive damage,” Corbett said. “It was a heavy fire pushing out of the house on Roosevelt Boulevard and we saw that it was starting to catch the house directly behind it on fire. As I pulled up, the main power lines started to burn through and they actually snapped and we had dangling, live wires to contend with in between the two houses on fire.”

Corbett said when firefighters arrived on the scene, the fires were already in advanced stages at the rear of both homes, and that the original blaze appeared to have been accidental. The fire was further fueled by gas from a 20-pound propane tank located on the back porch of the Roosevelt home.

“After the fire started, it heated up the propane tank, which caused the gas in the propane tank to heat up, which in turn blew the relief valve and fueled the fire even more,” Corbett said.

It took the firefighters approximately 40 minutes to contain the fires. One firefighter suffered a facial laceration and was taken to Long Beach Medical Center for treatment and released, Corbett said.

The occupants of the two homes were self-evacuated safely by the time fire crews arrived and were able to escape the flames unharmed.