Wilmington firefighters on the C Platoon were dispatched to the 500 block of South Van Buren Street at approximately 5 a.m. Sunday after reports of a structure fire, arriving to find smoke pouring from a two-story row dwelling. Crews pushed into the basement, where they located and extinguished the fire.
The blaze was placed under control within 15 minutes, according to a Wilmington Fire post on Facebook.
A Row House Neighborhood With Narrow Margins
The 500 block of South Van Buren Street sits in Wilmington’s Hedgeville neighborhood, an area of attached single-family row houses built under the city’s R-3 residential zoning district, which is specifically meant to preserve historic row home blocks, according to Redfin. That dense, shared-wall layout is part of why fire crews treat basement fires in these homes as especially urgent calls. Fire safety research from the Firefighters Association of the State of New York has found that basement fires in attached row homes pose severe tactical risks, since interior stairways can act like chimneys, funneling superheated air and toxic smoke straight up into the living spaces above.
Two of the department’s own stations sit close enough to have played a role in the quick response. Firehouse 6, at 224 North Union Street, is located less than two miles from the fire scene, per the Fire Apparatus Wiki, while Firehouse 1 on West 2nd Street also covers the area. With a fire burning in the basement of an occupied row house, every minute of travel time mattered.
Fire Cause and Home Safety
No cause has been released for Sunday’s fire…