Rochester fire officials continue to investigate the cause of a four-alarm fire that tore through a commercial building on the city’s west side on Monday night.
It happened on Canal Street, at the four-story brick building that was unoccupied when the fire broke out.
City fire department spokesperson, Lt. Jackie Sierra, says they called four alarms because of the various types of equipment and personnel needed to battle the large fire.
“With a call like this we have multiple operations going in at once, so suppression efforts, we also had to evacuate the adjacent building," said Sierra. "We had to establish the collapse zone, we needed a lot of water, so different companies feeding the ladder pipes.”
A nearby apartment building was evacuated as a precaution, according to Sierra.
“We had a newly renovated apartment building very close to the fire building, so we had to evacuate those people," Sierra said. "The considerations that we took into account, obviously flames, heat, but also collapse. So there were windows on that side, we didn’t want any bricks to come down and injure somebody in that adjacent building.”
One firefighter suffered a minor injury. It took just over three hours to get the fire under control. It’s expected that the building will have to be demolished.
