Firefighters tackled a smoky three-alarm fire in a vacant Holyoke home on Dec. 27.
Crews were called to 190 Chestnut Street at 2:00 p.m. and companies responding from fire headquarters, three blocks away, found heavy smoke from a vacant three-story dwelling. The windows and doors on the first floor were boarded up with plywood.
One of the department's five engine companies was browned out for the day due to low manpower, so a mutual aid engine company from Chicopee was called to the scene to fill out what would become a third alarm assignment.
Companies stretched large caliber handlines to the second and third floors of the dwelling and attempted to gain control of the fire from the interior for an hour and a half before the fire broke through the roof, forcing firefighters to evacuate the structure and place portable monitors and one ladder pipe into operation.
