MANSFIELD — No one was home and no firemen were injured when a blaze broke out Wednesday night in the near south side of Mansfield.
Alarmed neighbors called firefighters when they noticed a blaze in the back of the home at 617 Russell Ave. in the Woodland neighborhood at approximately 7:30 p.m.
All firefighters in the City of Mansfield responded with 12 emergency vehicles on the scene.
“We knocked it down fairly quickly,” assistant fire chief Chris Speelman said. “There were 18 firefighters here, 19 counting me.”
Residents looked on from their yards and doorways, or milled around along the edges of the road to take in the scene.
Speelman said it was too dark to determine where or how the blaze began. He noted that fire investigators would take another look at the site Thursday morning.
“It looks like a lot of the damage is on the exterior and not as much on the interior,” Speelman said.
The smell of smoke still hung in the air more than two hours after firefighters arrived at the scene. Water springing from a hose connection served as a sprinkler in the front yard of the next-door home.
Neighbors brought in boxes as a resident removed some of his valuables from the residence.
Firemen could be seen on the first and second floor with flashlights, probing for any hot spots.
“We’re just glad nobody was home at the time,” Speelman said.