Early morning house fire prompts evacuations in SLO neighborhood
Residents temporarily evacuated from a row of town homes on Thursday morning, while firefighters battled a fire inside one of the buildings.
The San Luis Obispo City Fire Department responded to a house fire on the corner of Exposition Drive and South Street at about 7 a.m., acting deputy chief Armando Gutierrez told The Tribune.
When crews arrived on scene, they saw heavy smoke pouring from the inside of the house. When firefighters entered the building, they found the fire on the first floor, which sent heavy smoke to the second floor and into neighboring homes through their open windows.
All people had exited the home by the time firefighters searched it, he said.
Firefighters then found the resident outside the house, and evacuated adjacent buildings while they fought the fire. No one was injured, he said.
Fire crews discovered a “fully charred” lithium ion battery pack in the building, Gutierrez said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
Fire crews remained on scene for about 30 to 40 minutes after extinguishing the fire to ventilate the home and the adjoining strucutes after the battery pack burned, he said.
The resident of the burned home will be able to return when the building is remediated, Gutierrez said.
