Two destructive fires broke out overnight across the Houston area, keeping firefighters busy at opposite ends of the region and leaving investigators to sort out how each one started. The first tore through an apartment complex in Bellaire, while the second gutted the interior of a historic former school building in the Heights. Both blazes sent a firefighter to seek medical attention, though no residents were reported hurt in either case.
The first fire erupted around 9:30 p.m. at the Pont Alba apartments on Bissonnet in Bellaire, where fire crews responded to what they described as a fairly intense blaze. The flames proved serious enough that Bellaire firefighters had to call in three other neighboring departments to help bring the fire under control at the residential complex, drawing a heavy response to the scene late Saturday night.
By the time the fire was knocked down, authorities said 16 units at the complex had been affected, though it was not immediately clear how many people had been impacted or displaced by the damage. One firefighter was taken to the hospital for heat exhaustion, a reflection of the punishing conditions crews were working in, and no other injuries were reported. Officials had no word on what caused the fire.
The second fire broke out just before midnight, when the Houston Fire Department was called to an abandoned building on Center Street in the Heights. Firefighters arrived to find the old Harper School, a long-shuttered former school building, burning inside, and they moved in to attack the flames as smoke poured from the historic structure in one of Houston's older neighborhoods.
One firefighter twisted an ankle while working that scene, the only reported injury there. Crews expected to remain at the old school through the morning as they worked to fully extinguish the fire and make sure it did not reignite inside the vacant building. As with the Bellaire fire, officials said the cause of the blaze at the old Harper School remained under investigation.
Both fires unfolded during a stretch of dangerous summer heat gripping the Houston region, with daytime highs pushing into the upper 90s and around 100 degrees and feels-like temperatures climbing into the triple digits in parts of the area. The extreme conditions add strain for firefighters wearing heavy protective gear, and heat exhaustion has become a recurring hazard on the fire line during the current heat wave.
For now, the two overnight fires leave open questions in two very different corners of the Houston area, one at a lived-in apartment community in Bellaire and the other at a piece of the Heights' architectural past. Investigators in both jurisdictions had not determined a cause by early Sunday, and the scenes remained active as crews finished their work and began the task of piecing together what happened.