5 displaced after large fire engulfs Maryvale home

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Five people are without a place to live after fast-moving flames engulfed a home in the Maryvale neighborhood of Phoenix early Wednesday morning.

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The blaze was reported shortly after 9 a.m. at a home on Virginia Avenue, near 59th Avenue and Thomas Road.

“We initially got calls for reports of black smoke from a structure, someone called it in from a different location,” said Phoenix Fire Capt. DJ Lee.

Lee says crews arrived and found heavy black smoke coming from the single-story home. Firefighters quickly deployed handlines to help fight the flames.

Everyone inside the home safely escaped, and crews were able to gain control over the blaze.

“Our crews did a great job with such a big fire, containing it to just one house. You can see some of the houses are kind of close to each other, so they did a very good, impressive stop fighting this fire, keeping from spreading to a secondary house,” Lee said. “Best case scenario, everybody got out.”

Before firefighters arrived, two neighbors and a landscaper who was in the area for work rushed into the home to try and provide help.

“Luckily, nobody was inside the house, no pets, no nobody. We got out,” said Gerardo Orozco.

Orozco, along with neighbor Gabriel Romero and landscaper Jose Arriaga Rodriguez, say they went room to room after seeing the fire to help.

Neighbors say a father, his two sons and two other family members live in the home, which appears to be a total loss after the fire.

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“I’m still shocked. I talked to my wife. I told her I feel kind of shocky still, because it could happen to anyone. I mean, we live across the street, and it’s just fire, you know? It’s sad seeing a house like that burn,” said Orozco.

Arizona’s Family news chopper witnessed large plumes of black smoke and flames pouring from the roof of the house. Firefighters climbed to the roof, spraying the flames and other items in the backyard that caught on fire.

“The whole house looks like it caught on fire, the whole attic space. You can see through a roof area that fire did come all the way through, all the way across the house,” Lee said.

Several holes were cut from the roof, which Lee says is critical in helping crews contain large fires.

“Whenever our guys go inside of a fire, it’s obviously very dangerous. When we put ladder companies on the roof, a lot of the times what they’re doing is cut a hole in the roof to hopefully get some of that heat and smoke out from the interior of the house so that we can get some of that smoke and heat out so we can do our searches for people inside the building,” the fire captain explained.

Aftermath video shows most of the roof covered in black char. The back of the house was nearly destroyed as crews continued to put out hot spots. No firefighters were hurt.

Lee says firefighters are working with the homeowners to retrieve any salvageable belongings. Crews will continue to determine what ignited the blaze.

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