Firefighter Injured, 14 Units Uninhabitable After Alexandria Apartment Fire: Report

ALEXANDRIA, VA – Fourteen apartments are uninhabitable after a fire started by smoking materials left on a balcony on Sunday spread into the attic and roof of a building on South Pickett Street, according to the Alexandria Fire Department.

According to the Alexandria City Fire Department, units responding to reports of a fire at 251 South Pickett Street at about 9 a.m. on Sunday encountered flames shooting from the roof of the building.

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The department says the fire started in a planter on the balcony of apartment 402 before spreading into the attic, to an apartment next door and eventually to the roof. According to the Alexandria Brief, one firefighter was injured while fighting the fire.

Salvage and overhaul operations were conducted at the building where the fire started and at the building next door, 249 South Pickett Street. The residents of 14 units have been displaced and are being assisted by the American Red Cross, according to the fire department.

The department concluded that the fire was started accidentally by smoking materials that hadn't been properly disposed of.

Units from the Fairfax County Fire Department assisted in fighting the fire.

The department is reminding city residents to make sure cigarettes and other smoking materials are completely extinguished in a sturdy, noncombustible container filled with sand or water and never left in planters or mulch.