EAST CLEVELAND, Ohio — Friday morning, a fire in East Cleveland on Potomac Avenue spread, damaging multiple homes. This is just one of a number of fires 3News has covered in recent days.
Since Jan. 22, WKYC has covered eight house fires, including this morning’s blaze in East Cleveland. A neighbor on Potomac Avenue tells us he smelled smoke around 6 a.m., and when he looked out the window, he saw the house next door in flames.
"I ran out here to make sure my house wasn’t on fire, and I was in shock, because the whole side of my house is melted," John McLemore said. "But I'm glad it just didn't catch it, because it could've been worse."
According to McLemore, the house where the fire started was abandoned.
The East Cleveland Police Department tells 3News that the first call came in at 6:32 a.m. Officers called for mutual aid and fire crews arrived at the scene, which was finally cleared just after 9 a.m.
This is one of a number of fires throughout Greater Cleveland in recent days and weeks.
Robert Bures, public information officer for the Parma Fire Department, admits they have seen an uptick in fires recently.
"We've been on quite a few more [fires] than we typically go out on," he stated. "Usually, we're seeing one to two working fires a month, and in the last month, we've had four or five pretty good working fires, which is uncommon for us."
Brunswick Fire Chief Greg Glauner says his department has also seen more fires, claiming they've responded to an estimated five to seven over about a month.
One of those fires occurred early Tuesday morning at a home on the 2800 block of Nancy Circle. At the scene, assistant fire chief Russ Merhaut told WKYC that the mother, father, and two children were transported to the hospital. There were apparently no smoke detectors in the home.
Per Glauner, two of those people were still hospitalized as of Friday, one in critical condition.
North Royalton also says it is seeing more fires than in the summer months, however they say that's typical during the winter.
Both Glauner and Bures emphasized the importance of having working smoke detectors in the home, as well as a fire safety plan so you know how to get out in case of an emergency. Both also say there are a number of reasons why fires happen, and they can't attribute all of these fires to one single reason.
"We've had a few different causes, and a few of them are pretty common — electrical is always a problem, extension cords," Bures noted. "We've had careless smoking, so people smoking and not putting their cigarettes out correctly. We had an oily rag fire where we had somebody mis-storing rags used to refinish floors and furniture. Just kind of all over the place why we're getting these fires."
Bures says people should also be aware as fish fry season approaches, as frying and oil fires are also common.