On November 25, 2021 at 10:07 AM, the Rensselaer County Emergency Communication Center began to receive multiple calls for a smoke investigation for smoke coming from the back yard of 431 5th Avenue. The initial dispatch was for engine one only, but a dispatcher started to take calls for fire coming from the second floor of the house and the alarm of fire was toned.

Engine one, engine four, engine six, rescue squad, truck one, truck two, medic four, and the battalion chief was dispatched to the scene. As engine one pulled out of quarters onto Fifth Avenue, the officer on the engine notified the dispatcher that the smoke was in the air and they could see it four blocks away and transmitted the signal thirty. On arrival engine one had a two and half story wood frame structure with heavy smoke showing from the second floor and from the attic vent. Command requested the second alarm as heavy fire pushed from the delta side of the structure and the city of Cohoes and the Watervliet Arsenal was dispatched to the scene.

As firefighters from engine one made their way to the second floor of the structure, firefighters were met with a heavy smoke condition throughout the residence and could see the fire pushing from the rear of the apartment. Firefighters coming from Cohoes were slow down due to a train coming through the city at the time of the request for mutual aid. As firefighters made their way to the seat of the fire, the truck company on scene made their way to the roof and began to conduct truck company operations.

Firefighters were able to knock down the heavy fire condition inside of the house quickly. Additional resources that arrived on scene conducted a primary and secondary search of the house which turned up negative for anyone inside of the home. The Red Cross was contacted for the family and their pets inside of the home. Firefighters conducted extensive overhaul on the second floor of the house.

Fire Investigator‘s arrived on scene along with code enforcement. No injuries were reported and the home was shut down by code enforcement due to the fire on the second floor. At the time of the incident the Troy turkey trot was going on and one of the cities very few in-service engines was engine three which responded to a traffic accident near the race course on 102nd Street from the Eastside of the city. Due to engine two being out of service due to the staffing being placed on medic two for a medical call before the fire came in. The medic crew was at the Veterans Affair hospital in the city of Albany during the fire. With engine two out of service, this depleted all available resources at the time of the fire from the city of Troy. Within one hour fire units came back in to service from the fire scene.