SJPD battles weekend spike in house fires across midtown

Fire crews fought 4 fires throughout the weekend, the fire inspector for the department told KQ2 he normally sees about about half as many at the most.

St.

Joseph fire department.

Crews spent the past two days battling multiple blazes across the city's midtown area.

Kq2's ron johnson spoke with an inspector with the department about the spike in fires, as well as what people can do to potentially keep more from happening.

<<ron johnson reportingthis is what the past 24-48 hours have looked like for st.

Joseph firefighters, they've been busy battling blaze after blaze across the city at various locations in midtown.

Firefighters said it all started saturday morning with a fire they believe was intentionally set at a home in the 1200 block of corby st.

That fire we're told later re-kindled.

Then at this recently vacated house on north 19th st.

Another fire.

No one was found to be inside.

And this video captured by a viewer shows another vacated house in the 1600 block of locust street fully engulfed in flames early sunday morning.

Crews battling four fires total in just one shift for the department's fire inspectori've been doing this 22 years, it's the most i've had in one day.

Steve henrichson says most he sees half as many calls in one day's work.

I average normally between one and two everytime i'm on callwhile we have seen our fair share of fires over the past month henrichson says up until this weekend things had been pretty quiet.

He says those without a place to stay are likely looking for shelter from the cold, they set fires to keep warm that quickly get out of control.

The weather conditions he said are also likely contributing to the spike.

Some of the homeless are looking for places to stay and looking for old vacant houses and things like that.

This is of course the first really cold cold snap we've had ground and everything else so.if the weather stays cold we could see more fires, he says the best thing people can do to protect their homes and neighborhoods is to keep an eye out.the biggest thing is the neighbors, i mean we can't be in every neighborhood.

The neighbors see somebody walking around a house or going through somebody's property that doesn't belong there call the police.

Ron johnson kq2 news the inspector told us the family that lived in the home on corby st.

Was displaced and is getting assistance from the red cross.

No one was injured in the other two fires this