GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Fire crews are responding to a house fire in Grand Rapids. The multi-family home is located on Dawes Avenue SE, south of 28th Street SE.
Nearly 20 firefighters and eight firetrucks were spotted at the scene. According to Captain David Marchinda with the Grand Rapids Fire Department, the initial call came in just before 5:30 p.m.
"It was a report of a fire on the back porch. Crews got on scene, and between the wind and the structure, it developed quite quickly and spread to all the units," said Marchinda Monday evening. "There normally is a firewall. But with these new builds, it's really lightweight construction, so it's not uncommon for them to spread quite rapidly."
He said all residents made it out of the structure without injuries and fire crews were on scene within five minutes.
"We had one firefighter that was slightly injured," Marchinda said. "I do not believe there were any civilian injuries."
Marchinda said it took fire crews around 40 minutes to put out the flames.
"We won't know for quite a while on the cause. All we know that it started on the back side, and all four units are kind of burnt away on the backside," said Marchinda.
Joni Jessup lives across the street from the now-damaged condos.
"We were stunned, how fast it just moved across the back of the building, and you could see that the lawn on the back was on fire, and going up on the hill was on fire too," Jessup said. "It was almost instantaneous. It was unbelievable. It wasn't even five minutes."
She said one of the families in the affected condos did end up losing a pet bunny.
"We did lose a rabbit, which is a really sad story, because it was a rescue rabbit," said Jessup.
Kira Pysemska was at a grocery store with her dad blocks away when she saw the smoke.
"We saw, like, a lot of gray sky and a lot of gray air, and then, like, 15 minutes later, there was a lot of fire going on the roof was floating like, like that," said Pysemska.
Jessup said the incident is heartbreaking, though she's relieved all residents are okay.
"I just couldn't believe it. You look at it when something happens once and it's so devastating. And you know what people are doing over there now is, it's the stuff that's got your family photos and it's your bunny. And it's those things that you just can't replace that hurt the most," Jessup said.
FOX 17 will continue to provide updates as more information becomes available.
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