One person was killed and three others injured in a fire inside an apartment building in Bridgeport, Conn., on Monday night.
The deceased victim was identified only as a woman living in the unit, and the injured victims have not been publicly identified, News 12 Connecticut reported. Bridgeport authorities were still investigating the cause of the fire on Tuesday.
Eight people — four adults and four children — were displaced by fire and relocated by the Red Cross, the Connecticut Post reported.
Firefighters responded around 5 p.m. to reports of a blaze at an apartment building about 45 miles north of Central Park. The building had a wooden frame, according to local Fox affiliate WTIC.
The fire primarily affected the second and third floors of the structure, WTIC reported. It took about two and a half hours to extinguish, but the bulk of the fire was knocked down by 6:25 p.m., firefighters told the CT Post.
“Getting inside to extinguish this was a challenge,” Assistant Fire Chief Jeffrey Gdovin told local ABC affiliate WTNH. “What we decided to do was go into our adjacent apartments, breach the walls, knock the fire down and go through the walls to finish extinguishing it and start our searches.”
However, there was only smoke and fire damage inside a single unit, according to WTIC.
“It’s always heartbreaking when somebody loses their life, but two days before Christmas, I can’t imagine anything more tragic for this woman’s family,” Fire Chief Lance Edwards told News 12.