By Steven Barrie and Richard Brooks
The Press Enterprise
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Firefighters battling a two-alarm blaze Thursday morning in a vacant house in San Bernardino had to contend with piles of trash and furniture in the house that made entry impossible.
The fire, reported just after 6:30 a.m., severely damaged the back end of the single-story house and an attached garage, the Fire Department said in a news release.
San Bernardino police blocked off streets in the neighborhood around the burning house on North Bell and 19th streets, to allow 11 fire units to stage for the fight, said San Bernardino fire Battalion Chief Tom Hannemann.
When firefighters arrived, they found the house so cluttered that they could not get inside, Hannemann said.
“We encountered pack-rat conditions, with trash and furniture piled floor to ceiling,” he said. “We fought (the fire) by squirting water in through windows and any other opening we could find.”
Despite the challenges, the 34 firefighters had the blaze extinguished in 30 minutes, the department said in a news release.
“The lady who owned the house” — now deceased — “owned another house on the block that was also in pack-rat conditions,” Hannemann said.
Crews searched the building for victims but found none, and no injuries were reported. No other structures were damaged.
The fire caused about $95,000 in damage to the structures and contents, Hanneman said.
Code-enforcement officers and the city attorney’s office are working on an abatement plan to get the house cleaned up, he said.
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