Multiple houses catch fire as Fourth of July sparks busy night for Fresno firefighters

At least three homes caught fire on a busy Fourth of July night for Fresno firefighters.

A two-alarm house fire was reported around 9:40 p.m. Monday in the area of North Farris, East Thomas and North Harrison avenues in central Fresno.

Fresno Fire Battalion Chief Tony Escobedo said “several houses” caught fire in the area. While the cause remained under investigation, Escobedo noted the fireworks celebrations were forcing fire crews to scramble around the city.

Firefighters were fielding at least a dozen calls simultaneously around 9:30 p.m., according to a tweet from the department.

Numerous smaller fires — cars, large trees, and roadside vegetation — were reported throughout the night.

The houses around North Farris, East Thomas and Harrison avenues are tightly bunched.

“Several houses caught fire here on Harrison, on Farris and on Thomas,” Escobedo said. “We had at least three structures involved in this fire, spreading and endangering additional homes.

“Multiple calls started pouring in to our dispatch center. Units were being sent to Farris, then to Harrison and then to Thomas, all of which had three or four engine companies assigned to them and everybody was hands-on working to get these fires out before they spread to any more homes.”

Overhanging power lines made the battle more difficult.

“We do emergency alert zones,” Escobedo said. “We alert everybody where they’re at. Our safety officers try to keep everybody back and away from that location and as you can tell we can’t engage.

“Water is going to accumulate on the floor. That increases the risk to our firefighters so we have to change tactic and maybe go from another direction.”

The buildings that caught fire were destroyed.

As of early Tuesday afternoon, the city of Fresno had not announced a summary of holiday weekend incidents and citations.

This story was originally published July 5, 2022 at 6:43 AM.