MILWAUKEE -- Two firefighters are injured and more than a dozen people are displaced from their home after a 2-alarm fire breaks out on Milwaukee’s south side.
The fire broke out around 1 p.m. Sunday near the intersection of Lapham and Cesar Chavez Drive.
The fire originally started at one structure but spread to another. When fire fighters arrived to the scene, the fire was on several floors and was running out of the windows up the side of the home.
“We had a heavy volume of fire on several floors, extending to a second structure,” Deputy Chief Terry Lintonen with the Milwaukee Fire Department said. “We had a lot of places to work within two structures at the same time.”
Investigators haven’t found a cause for the fire.
Fire officials say there were more than a dozen people inside the two structures but they were able to get out safely.
“I’m so scared,” Zenaida Santiago said. “I lost everything. I took my puppy out and my parakeets but I lost everything.”
Santiago was able to get her children, grandchildren, husband and dog out before the fire consumed her home. Her aptly named dog Lucky was wrapped in a Red Cross blanket, shivering from either being cold, nervous or both. But Santiago was grateful to have him and her family safe and sound.
“Thank God I’m alive,” Santiago said. “I don’t have nothing but it’s ok. I have my faith in God. Materials? Forget about it. We’re alive.”
The two firefighters have non-life threatening injuries. One was taken to the hospital and the other was checked out at the scene.
The Red Cross Disaster Team is at the scene assisting the displace victims.
