Vacant house burns in Trenton

TRENTON -- Officials are investigating why a vacant row house caught fire early Saturday morning.
 

Firefighters arrived to see a thick column of smoke coming from 5 Fowler St. around 6 a.m. Saturday and battled heavy flames on the first floor, which quickly spread to the second floor, Battalion Chief John Panacek said.
 

The house was at the end of a row of three vacant row houses, Panacek said.
 

Firefighters contained the flames to the one house and had the fire under control by 6:30, he said.
 

"There was a lot of fire on the first floor, which spread to the second," Panacek said. "The first responders did a good job of extinguishing a big volume of fire and preventing spreading."
 

Part of the house collapsed inside, including a back wall, Panacek said.
 

"Once the fire got knocked down and we were onto mop-up, that was the difficult part because of structural integrity," he said.
 

Firefighters worked to extinguish hot spots and left the scene by 8:13 a.m., he said.
 

Panacek said there were no utilities in the building and no sign of accelerants.