A three-alarm fire tore through an abandoned house in Newark, New Jersey shortly after 4 a.m. Saturday, partially collapsing the structure and spreading to a nearby occupied three-family home before firefighters brought it under control. Everyone in the area escaped safely, but the blaze forced multiple people from their homes and left crews on scene into the morning dousing hot spots.
According to ABC7 Eyewitness News, the fire started at the vacant home and quickly grew serious enough that commanders raised it to three alarms. The unoccupied building partially collapsed during the fire, and flames jumped to the fully occupied three-family house next door, according to the outlet. The cause remains under investigation.
What makes Saturday's fire notable is that it was not the first at this address. The same abandoned property caught fire about three months earlier, per the same report, and neighbors have described the vacant structure as an ongoing neighborhood problem even before flames returned to finish the job.
A Familiar Hazard for Newark Fire Crews
Saturday's blaze fits a pattern that has repeated across Newark this year. In April, a three-alarm fire on Jefferson Street engulfed four residential buildings, displaced 59 residents, and injured six firefighters who were treated at University Hospital, according to News 12 New Jersey. That fire took more than 100 firefighters nearly five hours to bring under control.
Just weeks before that, in March, Newark firefighters battled an early-morning two-alarm fire on Dover Street in which flames in a three-story wood-frame building rapidly extended to an adjacent occupied residence, per the Newark Department of Public Safety. And in July, an explosion and structure fire in the city's North Ward displaced 26 people. The reports document these two Newark fires.
Fire safety experts say vacant buildings pose an outsized danger precisely because of situations like the one that unfolded overnight. National Fire Protection Association data cited by Firehouse Magazine shows that fires in vacant and abandoned buildings carry heightened risks of structural collapse and spread to neighboring homes, producing higher firefighter injury rates than almost any other property type. Unauthorized occupancy, stripped wiring, and structural rot all accelerate how quickly these fires spread through unmaintained homes, the publication notes.
City Has Long Wrestled With Vacant Properties
Newark has tracked more than 2,000 registered vacant or abandoned properties across its five wards, according to municipal housing reporting cited by NJ.com. The scale of that inventory has shaped years of city policy aimed at getting ahead of exactly the kind of repeat fire hazard seen at this property.
In April 2024, the Newark Municipal Council adopted Ordinance 6PSF-e, amending the city's vacant-property registration rules, per city legislative records. Property owners are required to register vacant buildings within 30 days and maintain exterior security to keep out unauthorized entry. That local rule builds on state law, including New Jersey's Assembly Bill A2877, enacted in January 2022.
Newark has also tried to convert the problem into opportunity. The city established New Jersey's first municipal land bank in October 2019, managed by the nonprofit Invest Newark, to address vacant and abandoned properties. The city has also pursued other housing initiatives.
Still, neglected structures pose a grim risk to Newark firefighters. The basic danger — fire spreading unchecked through a building nobody is maintaining — remains part of daily risk calculus for Newark's firefighters as investigators now work to determine what sparked Saturday's blaze.
