By Dave Statter
STATter911.com
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WASHINGTON, D.C. — What started as an apartment fire in the heart of Mount Pleasant spread to two separate buildings. An interior attack was initiated at the Meridian Hill Park Apartments at 3145 Mt. Pleasant Street just before midnight. Crews made sure residents were out of the building and had some difficulty finding the fire that was reported to be on the second floor. Residents were brought down ladders by firefighters.
Multiple maydays were called as conditions worsened and one firefighter was reported missing for a short period of time. All firefighters were eventually accounted for. One firefighter was injured.
The video from DC Fire & EMS photographer Vito Maggiolo shows efforts to communicate with trapped firefighters and get ladders to crews on the upper floors of the four-story building.
Firefighters were eventually ordered out of the structure and additional alarms were called as the fire rapidly spread throughout the building and threatened exposures.
At least four alarms and a number of special alarms were called to fight the apartment building fire.
A second fire broke out on the roof of the Meridian Hill Baptist Church to the east on 16th street. It went to a second alarm with a report of a third alarm in staging.
Mutual aid from Montgomery, Prince George’s Counties and Northern Virginia was sent to the firegrounds and to cover city fire stations.
Photographer Maggiolo recalls a winter fire in the 1970s at the very same building where this fire began, 3145 Mt. Pleasant Street. That fire burned the roof off of the apartment building.