Syracuse house fire kills one, chief says conditions worsened outcome

One person died after Syracuse firefighters found an unconscious occupant in a hallway at 2407 S. State St., where a fire broke out in the Brighton neighborhood and four other people escaped. Chief Michael Monds said the conditions inside made the outcome harder to avoid.

The fire was logged at 9:17 a.m. on June 25 as a residential blaze on South State Street near McAllister Avenue and McClure Avenue. The Onondaga County 911 Center alerted firefighters around 9:15 a.m., and Monds said crews reached the scene within minutes before locating the victim and pulling the fire under control within nine minutes.

Investigators will work with the city codes division and the tenant to determine whether the house was being used as a single-room or single-occupancy rental and whether that arrangement was legal. That kind of setup can make it harder for firefighters to know how many people are inside, where they are likely to be, and how quickly they can be reached when a rescue turns urgent.

The city’s Code Enforcement Division is responsible for protecting against health and safety violations in buildings across Syracuse. Its rental registry requires owners of one- or two-family homes rented without an owner living there to obtain a certificate every three years, and the city’s Look Before You Rent tool lets residents check a property’s rental registry status, certificate of compliance and code violations by address.

New York State’s Division of Building Standards and Codes oversees the Uniform Fire Prevention and Building Code and the Energy Conservation Construction Code, the standards that local officials enforce in Syracuse.