Woman, 81, displaced by Berkeley house fire Sunday
The house caught fire quickly, rendering the home uninhabitable.
A fire in North Berkeley on Sunday morning displaced a longtime resident from her home.
The house is expected to be red-tagged due to extensive damage, neighbors said.
The fire broke out in the 1300 block of Hearst Avenue, near Acton Street, at about 7:20 a.m.
A neighbor saw the homeowner, an 81-year-old woman, going in and out of the house as the fire spread.
He helped her get to safety and then called 911. The Berkeley Fire Department arrived within minutes, but the home was already engulfed.
"The whole neighborhood came out because there were a zillion fire trucks," said one neighbor, who asked to remain anonymous.
According to preliminary reports, the woman had been using a space heater to keep warm.
Firefighters were on the block for hours and, as of publication time, an investigator from the fire department remained at the scene.
The Scanner has asked BFD for more details and will update this story as soon as possible.
Update, 10 p.m. The Berkeley Fire Department provided some additional details about the Hearst Avenue house fire Sunday morning.
Battalion Chief Brian Harryman said BFD began getting reports after 7 a.m. about fire coming out the front door or on the front porch of a home on Hearst Avenue.
BFD sent a full assignment and Engine 6 arrived first, finding a fully-involved fire on the front side of the home.
Inside the house, firefighters found a lot of debris and storage, which made it hard to move around.
"We attacked it pretty quick," Harryman said, which helped prevent the blaze from spreading to the attic.
The fire caused significant damage to the front rooms of the house, blowing out the front door and windows.
Harryman said the home's lone occupant, a woman in her 80s, sustained non-life-threatening burns and was taken to the hospital for assessment.
BFD called the American Red Cross to help the woman with shelter for the foreseeable future. She won't be able to return to her home pending significant repairs.
The official cause of the fire was not available as of publication time.
Harryman said the woman had no relatives nearby but added that neighbors seemed to have rallied around her to offer their support.
Stay tuned for ongoing coverage.
