Firefighters use aerial ladder trucks to spray water on a fire at 39 W. Bridge St. in Oswego early Wednesday. The building, which suffered heavy damage, houses an apartment on the second floor and a longtime bar called The Raven on the first floor.
Firefighters use aerial ladder trucks to spray water on a fire at 39 W. Bridge St. in Oswego early Wednesday. The building, which suffered heavy damage, houses an apartment on the second floor and a longtime bar called The Raven on the first floor.
OSWEGO — An apartment and bar in the same building were badly damaged by a fire early Wednesday that took firefighters from multiple departments several hours to put out.
At 3:11 a.m., Oswego County 911 received a call from a citizen reporting that the back room of the upstairs apartment at 39 W. Bridge St. in the city of Oswego was on fire.
Oswego firefighters and police officers responded and found a fire in the back of a second-story apartment. The first-floor of the building houses a longtime bar called The Raven.
Chief Paul Conzone said only one person was home and she escaped unharmed and confirmed that no one else was inside.
Officers began evacuating nearby buildings. Firefighters met intense heat and heavy fire in the area between the ceiling and the roof and ran hoses upstairs.
“They did that until conditions became untenable for them,” Conzone said. “They encountered a lot of fire at the back of the structure.”
Firefighters were dealing with intense heat and poor visibility, Conzone said. Once the flames began to eat through the roof, the incident commander ordered everyone out.
Conzone said that since no one was trapped inside, firefighters regrouped, switched tactics and continued fighting it from outside. The department’s two aerial ladder trucks began spraying water down from above the building on West Bridge Street, and Novelis firefighters set up their aerial ladder truck and started spraying water from West Second Street.
Crews sprayed large amounts of water on the building for about 90 minutes before the fire was knocked down, Conzone said.
Conzone said a drone piloted by members of the city and county drone team proved invaluable in fighting the fire.
The drone’s thermal camera gave officials on the scene real-time information about where the fire was inside the building.
“That was being shared with the operators of the nozzles and we were able to direct the streams to the fire,” he said.
That was especially crucial because the fire was deep inside the back of the building and firefighters didn’t have a good vantage point to monitor conditions.
Conzone said that because of utility lines the aerial ladders could only get so close to the building.
And while the fire burned away a small hole in the roof, most of it remained intact, which made it challenging to locate the flames and douse them, he said.
The fire was declared under control at about 5 a.m.
Aside from Oswego firefighters, fire crews from Fulton, Novelis, Scriba, Minetto, Oswego Town, Volney, New Haven and Mexico also responded to the scene.
The Oswego City School District provided a bus to serve as a warming center for first responders, and the city Department of Public Works spent several hours spreading sand and salt over all the ice-covered surfaces created by the thousands of gallons of water being sprayed on the building.
Conzone said the building sustained heavy damage to the second floor and roof, mostly in the northeast corner. Nearby buildings suffered considerable smoke and water damage. Officials from the city codes and engineer’s office responded to inspect the building’s structural stability.
Volunteers from the local chapter of the American Red Cross provided emergency aid to five people following the fire.
Conzone said the cause of the fire is under investigation, though firefighters haven’t seen anything suspicious.
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