A late night four-alarm fire in South Minneapolis spread from a multi-unit garage to a apartment building and residential motel Wednesday. Two firefighters were among the injured.
Just before 11:30 p.m., firefighters were dispatched to a report of five or more cars burning in a garage on Lyndale Avenue South.
"Crews found a detached garage fully engulfed with fire that extended to both the 3-story residential building to the north and to the residential motel to the south," a statement from Minneapolis Assistant Fire Chief Melanie Rucker. A second alarm was called because of conditions they encountered.
Firefighters worked to ensure residents were out of each structure and began protecting the exposures and laid hoselines to attack the main fire building.
Flames broke through the roof of the three-story building and the one-story, W-shaped short-term residential motel as firefighters worked to make a trench cut in the motel.
Rucker said both the third and fourth alarms were sounded "...due to the large amount of fire spreading throughout all three structures." Crews were pulled out to go defensive and a ladder tower and ladder pipe were used to put big water on the fire.
The garage burned down to the ground, Rucker said. The roof of the apartment building collapsed, and the motel sustained a partial collapse.
Two firefighters sustained a shoulder and a knee injury and were transported to the hospital, along with a resident who suffered from a respiratory condition. Two firefighters were transported to the local hospital by HCMC for a shoulder injury and a knee injury.
The cause of the fire, which displaced about 50 people, is under investigation.
