Two structure fires left nearly 100 people homeless in just over a fourteen hour time span in the City of Holyoke and gutted two separate four story apartment blocks in the city just three weeks before Christmas. The first fire was toned out just after four o'clock in the afternoon on Monday December 1, 2025 and first in crews were presented with a well developed fire that had spread from the apartment of origin out into the public hallway and found the unprotected stairway which acted like a chimney flue, spreading the fire vertically to all four floors in a matter of minutes. Crews attempted an interior attack on this fire for roughly twenty minutes but when fire broke through the roof, Clemente St. command ordered all second alarm companies out of the structure and the sounding of the third alarm for more manpower. Companies were able to successfully contain this fire to the block or origin and keep the fire from jumping to the exposure buildings.

Barely fourteen hours after the Clemente St. fire was reported, at eight o'clock in the morning on Tuesday December 2nd, crews were once again called to respond. This time the fire was reported in the apartment block at the corner of High and Franklin Streets. Once again, companies arrived to a well developed fire, this time in a second floor unit that was auto venting on the Franklin Street side of the complex and jumping floors as the first lines were stretched. Holyoke jakes again made a valiant effort to cut off the fires' spread but were again forced to withdraw due to rapidly deteriorating conditions, strike the third alarm and go defensive once again. To make matters worse, the region's first snowstorm was just beginning and snow and ice made for slippery conditions during the height of the fire.

Thankfully, no human injuries were reported at either incident but multiple pets were reportedly lost to the fires. HFD investigators determined the High Street fire started in the second floor unit due to an overloaded extension cord but the cause of the first fire on Clemente Street remains under investigation.