Building Fire on Aurora Street- UPDATE

-Samantha Allen



Assistant Chief Daniel Tier III, of the Ithaca City Fire Department, released today that the county dispatch received a 911 call from an occupant on Aurora St. in Ithaca at 4:03 p.m. on Friday. Tier said response arrived at 4:07 p.m. The fire was contained and out within a matter of minutes.

The investigation of the cause of the fire concluded on Saturday that there was an electrical problem.

"It's been ruled as accidental," Tier said.

Tier guessed that there was most likely with the wiring of that particular city grid, and that caused the power surge.

"This is a unique situation in that the electrical transformer that supplies that particulur grid had some sort of failure," he said. "It sent a power surge to that whole grid."

According to Tier, 13 houses are on this particular grid and 5 other houses reported some sort of electrical damage that same day after the surge.

"There may be some others but that’s all that we know about," he said.

The New York State Electrical Department or Ithaca City Public Works have returned my calls for comment. In a brief interview today, the local Red Cross chapter confirmed that this apartment housed 12 people, 10 of which are IC students. All have been displaced and put into on-campus housing by the RHA and Public Safety.

THIS IS AN UPDATE TO A PREVIOUS POST. CHECK IT OUT HERE.