Special to El Rrun-Rrun
The fire at the blaze that started at 916 E Monroe on Friday has ignited a conflagration between the city administration and fire department officials after residents' produced recorded documentation that fire trucks took nearly half an hour to respond to the fire that was only three blocks away.
Concurrently, sources close to the department say that investigators say they have found the 'signature" of a suspected serial arsonist at the structure that has been found in at least three other fires in the downtown area.
Residents near the scene said that the fire may have started in the attic of an abandoned home. The strong winds at the time carried the flames over to the home next door very quickly.
"The investigators found gasoline-soaked sponges at the scene jut like the ones they found in three other fires and they think they know who did it," said a resident. "It spread quickly, but the trucks took a long time to get there and several times the water pressure only allowed on guy with a hose to stand between the two buildings trying to spray both fires."
Sources in the city say city administrators have met with Brownsville Fire Chief Jarret Sheldon and his officers have been questioned on the slow response time that allowed the fire to fully engulf the two buildings before firefighters could set up their hoses and try to douse the flames.
"A guy here taped the whole thing once the fire started," said a resident who asked his name not be used. "At first we thought that the firefighters would put out the fire real quick, but they took a long time to get there and even longer to connect their hoses. Even once they set them up, the water pressure would fail."
Other sources say that the firefighters at the central fire station were unable to start their fire engines and arrived at the fire site too late to stop its spread to the house next door.
So was the total loss of two homes just three blocks away from the central fire station a combination of a serial arsonist and the delayed response of the fire department to the scene?