Stubborn Basement Fire in Pittsburg

At 12:43pm today a neighbor next door to 145 School Street dialed 9-1-1 to report a loud “BANG” and smoke coming from the single family home. The house was recently sold to an investor and was just about ready to be rented out – however no one was living in the house, yet. The first arriving crew reported a basement fire with potential extension into the main structure. The house was built in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s and was what we refer to as “balloon construction”. The significance of balloon construction is that no fire breaks are installed in the walls – this allows fire to spread rapidly up the walls into the floor(s) and attic above the basement. This is exactly what happened in this case.

Although the basement fire was controlled quickly by firefighters, significant fire spread had already occurred and therefore the home suffered significant damage to the walls, first and second floors, attic and roof. The structure had a tin roof which made vertical ventilation (cutting holes in the roof to allow hot gasses and smoke to escape) difficult and time consuming. The fire continued burning in the attic space for an extended period of time.

No injuries were reported to either civilians or fire personnel. The initial first alarm assignment of 2 ladder trucks, 3 engines and 2 Chief Officers was augmented by an additional 2 engines, a mobile breating support unit and a Training/Safety Officer due to the amount of overhaul and hidden fire in this structure. 25 firefighters from Pacheco, Walnut Creek, Bay Point, Antioch, and Pittsburg were committed for almost 3 hours to control and extinguish this fire.

The preliminary investigation revealed a possible natural gas leak as the cause of the fire with an unknown initial ignition source. That ignition source may have come from a nearby water heater or furnace. Total damage to the structure could be in excess of $50,000.

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