An intense blaze brought firefighters to East Carson Street in Pittsburgh's South Side Wednesday morning.
The fire started just before 4 a.m. in a vacant building near 19th Street.
Difficult conditions caused crews to bring this to four alarms.
“It was a little bit of a difficult fire,” Fire Chief Darryl Jones said. “Once we had to reset and get inside the floors were spongey, the stairs were burned away. The temperatures right now are very warm. The guys are carrying an extra 80 to 100 pounds in this case."
"I woke up to my fire alarm going off, had smoke everywhere," said Joseph Lazar, who called 911. "I knew that they were working on the apartment below me, looked around, didn't see any flames, went downstairs, went to open neighbor's door, it was locked. I walked outside, saw smoke coming from neighbor's building. Firefighters showed up in a minute."