Longview firefighters responded to a fire in a vacant house on the 200 block of 21st Avenue around 8:30 a.m. Thursday morning, according to the Longview Fire Department. Officials believe the home was "actively occupied" by transients, said Troy Buzalsky, battalion chief.
"The front door was boarded up with plywood boards ... but the back door was wide open," he said.
Crews treated the house as an occupied structure, Buzalsky said, searching both floors. No people were found, and nobody was "officially displaced" by the fire, he said.
The fire was extinguished within 20 minutes. The cause is under investigation.
Crews will try to seal off the bank-owned building to prevent anyone from returning to live in it, Buzalsky said.