ALBANY, NY - On June 4th at 10:19 P.M., the emergency lines at the dispatcher center in the city of Albany began to ring off the hook as multiple calls began pouring in for a reported structure fire at 858 Madison Avenue. Engines 7 and 9, Rescue 9, the rescue squad, Trucks 4 and 3, Mohawk Ambulance Service, and the battalion chiefs responded to the scene.

The dispatcher notified the chiefs that they had heavy smoke showing on the cameras near the intersection. Engine 7 arrived on scene with heavy smoke and fire showing from the structure and transmitted the Signal 30 for a working fire. Firefighters immediately deployed a one-and-three-quarter inch hand line to the front door of the structure and notified incoming units to grab the hydrants nearby.

As heavy fire blew out the windows of the structure onto the neighboring building, firefighters knew they had to get to the second-floor to attempt to knock down that fire before it could spread to another building. As they were making entry to the building, command was notified that there was possible entrapment inside the building. Engine 11 arrived on scene and quickly connected to the hydrant nearby. Command notified the dispatcher that he had a two-story wood-frame structure with a commercial occupancy on the first-floor and heavy smoke and fire throughout the second-floor of the structure with exposure problems on the 'Delta' side of the building.

As firefighters deployed a one-and-three-quarter inch hand line up the stairs onto the second-floor of the building, they encountered a heavy fire condition which pushed them back down onto the landing of the staircase. The firefighter on the hand line requested that line to be charged. Firefighters from the truck company began cutting a gate that was locked with a K-12 to get one of the truck companies into position to protect one of the exposure buildings and to hit the heavy fire in the rear roof area of the building.

As firefighters were working to get the gate open, heavy fire blew through the roof of the building. Additional resources quickly began to arrive on scene and assist with stretching more hand lines into the building. Firefighters made their way to the adjacent exposure building as heavy fire was hitting the roofline and into a window on the second floor. Command received reliable information that all of the occupants were out of the building. The police department was also able to confirm that from the building owner.

Truck 3 began forcing entry to multiple doors inside of the structure and as firefighters were working to do so, heavy fire pushing from the main fire building caught the second building on the 'Delta' side on fire and command requested the second-alarm to be transmitted. Command had Rescue 9's crew pull a two-and-one-half inch hand line down the side alleyway and they began to knock down some of the heavy fire from the exterior.

On the second-alarm, Engine 1, Truck 1 and Rescue 1 were requested to the scene. Firefighters on the second-floor requested crews to feed them hose and the truck company to force every door in the building. With crews working on the second-floor of the structure, command notified all units that they had heavy smoke now pushing from the first-floor of the main fire building, and to utilize caution as it could flash.

Firefighters in the secondary fire building notified command that they had all of the occupants out and accounted for. Firefighters notified command that they were taking hooks and opening up the ceiling as they had heavy fire in the attic of the secondary fire building. Firefighters in the rear of the secondary fire building requested Engine 11 to charge the red 200-foot line as they had heavy fire cutting off the staircase in the rear. With heavy fire running the cockloft, the walls, and blowing through the roof of the main building, command requested the all-out tones to be sent across the radio to get everyone out of the building. As command conducted par on the fire scene, firefighters switched to a defensive operation. Firefighters in the secondary building continued to make an aggressive push on the second-floor and into the attic area, but the heavy fire conditions kept pushing them back.

Firefighters began changing their bottles as the truck company set up for master stream operations in the front of the building. As multiple truck companies notified command that they were ready to go into operation, command made sure that everyone was accounted for on the scene and allowed for the truck companies to open up their master streams. As soon as command made the call, heavy fire blew through the roof on the 'Bravo' side of the structure. Police began to evacuate that building as the heavy fire was impinging on the structure.

The truck companies opened up their master streams and began to quickly knock down a significant portion of the heavy fire condition in the roof and on the second-floor of the primary and secondary fire buildings. As the truck companies pounded the fire buildings with thousands of gallons of water per minute, heavy amounts of water began to push out the front door of the structure. As all of the heavy fire subsided and the smoke turned into steam, command allowed for the firefighters to re-enter the structure with hand lines and tools to mop up the hot spots that were remaining.

Fire crews continued to hit hotspots for an extended period of time and remained on scene until the early hours of the morning. Both the buildings were total losses, and one of the buildings had to be torn down due to its structural integrity. The fire is under investigation at this time.