As the final cinders of a Monday night fire still smoked in the cold night air, the hydrant's water continued to rush down 20th Avenue in a working-class Eastside neighborhood marked by standalone clapboard homes and modest lawns.
Homes like the one that city firefighters battled to extinguish on 35th Street after a three-alarm fire tore through its basement and upper two floors, with no identifiable cause in the immediate aftermath.
"The basement was fully engulfed when we arrived, then came up all the way to the attic," Public Safety Director Jerry Speziale said of where the fire began, as crews from six municipalities still scrambled to ensure the last of it was out.
"It was pretty burned [inside]," Speziale added to describe the rest of the home, which stayed upright, though a blackened interior could be seen through broken windows.