A persistent fire in Scranton left a family of five homeless and killed their pet Chihuahua on Wednesday.
The blaze at 216 Harrison Ave., which began around 12:53 p.m., proved a "labor-intensive" job for the city's firefighters as it began in the home's basement, then traveled through the walls and into the attic, Asst. Fire Chief Paul Laskowski said.
Responding crews initially thought the fire began in the attic as heavy smoke had already made its way out of the eaves of the house, but they quickly found its source below.
"When you find out it's in the basement - that's a long day," said Deputy Fire Chief Al Lucas. "You're chopping walls and pulling ceilings ... more extensively."
Asst. Chief Laskowski explained that once a fire gets into the walls of a structure, firefighters are forced to go through the building tearing into walls and ceilings in search of flames to extinguish.
As the Uvera family watched their home of the last six years pump acrid grey-brown smoke into the crisp November air, the sound of firefighters' axes hacking through walls could be heard from the street as they searched for flames.
Chuauh-temoc Uvera, 45, said he was out looking for work when he learned his home was on fire.
Inspectors had not yet determined the cause of the fire on Wednesday, though Mr. Uvera said the home had a wood stove in the basement.
For every window firefighters knocked out of the home, another plume of the thick smoke made its way out of the building for at least 40 minutes, when the cloud drifting east behind the home started to abate.
The fire called for all of the city's on-duty fire crews on Wednesday, prompting the department to call in 16 off-duty firefighters to man apparatus across the city while crews completed the work on Harrison Avenue, Deputy Chief Lucas said.
Deputy Chief Lucas said that is standard procedure when the department encounters a significant structure fire.
"This looked like we were going to be here a while," Deputy Chief Lucas said.
The Red Cross of Lackawanna County is providing food, clothing and shelter for the displaced family, said Carmon Flynn, Red Cross executive director.
Contact the writer: domalley@timesshamrock.com, @domalleyTT on Twitter