St. Paul firefighters raced between three separate house fires in under 90 minutes on Saturday afternoon, pulling an adult woman and a female toddler from a burning duplex and battling a house engulfed on all four sides while a firefighter suffered minor injuries along the way. The cause of all three fires remains under investigation.
The chaos began at 2:30 p.m. in the 1800 block of Magnolia Avenue East, where firefighters found a fire on the first floor of an up-and-down duplex and managed to contain the flames to their originating apartment unit, according to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. No injuries were reported from that first fire. Early evidence pointed to unattended cooking as a possible contributing factor, per KARE 11.
An hour later, at around 3:30 p.m., a second fire broke out just blocks away in the 700 block of Magnolia Avenue East. Firefighters made interior entry and rescued an adult woman and a female toddler from the first floor before both were transported to a local hospital, KARE 11 reports. St. Paul Fire has said it will not release additional information about their conditions.
A House Fully Engulfed on Elizabeth Street
Just before 4 p.m., a third call sent crews to the 100 block of Elizabeth Street East, where they found a single-family home ablaze with flames visible on all sides. The blaze was severe enough that firefighters initially attacked it from the exterior, a defensive tactic the station's report says was meant to protect a neighboring home from exposure. Crews prevented the fire from spreading, and no occupants were home at the time, though four dogs remained unaccounted for.
A firefighter sustained minor injuries at some point during the rapid string of incidents, though the exact circumstances have not been detailed. St. Paul Fire Department reported that all three structure fires occurred in rapid succession across different parts of the city on Saturday afternoon.
Fire Chief Praises Crews Amid the Rapid Response
Interim Fire Chief Gregory Duren II said the department's thoughts are with everyone impacted by the fires, particularly those injured or displaced. He said crews responded quickly, made critical rescues, prevented fires from spreading, and continued emergency service throughout the city despite the overlapping calls. Duren added that he is extremely proud of the firefighters, EMTs and paramedics who handled the stretch.
The rapid succession of three working structure fires is a statistical rarity for a department that fields more than 65,000 emergency calls a year, according to the Saint Paul Fire Department, which operates out of 15 stations across the capital. A Tri-Data study covered by Bring Me The News found that actual structure fires make up only about 0.5% of the department's total calls, with roughly 95% of dispatches being medical responses. Saint Paul also holds an ISO Class 2 Public Protection Classification, the highest fire-protection rating of any city in Minnesota for suppression, water supply and emergency communications.
Staffing Pressures Behind the Scenes
The department's ability to juggle three simultaneous fires comes amid long-running concerns from labor leaders about staffing levels. Local 21 union leaders reported that St. Paul added only eight sworn firefighters over a 50-year span, even as emergency call volume surged more than 56% in the decade before 2023, KARE 11 has reported separately. Much of that increase in demand has been driven by rising need for emergency medical services rather than fire calls.
The early indication that unattended cooking contributed to the first Magnolia Avenue fire fits a well-documented statewide pattern. The Minnesota Department of Public Safety's State Fire Marshal Division consistently identifies unattended cooking as the leading cause of residential house fires in Minnesota, though careless smoking remains the leading cause of fatal home fires. Nationally, the National Fire Protection Association has found that cooking equipment causes 49% of all home structure fires, and research cited by the U.S. Fire Administration shows more than half of non-fatal cooking-fire injuries occur when residents try to fight the flames themselves rather than evacuating and calling 911.
Several open questions remain from Saturday's incidents. The conditions of the rescued woman and toddler have not been made public, the official causes of all three fires are still under investigation, and it is not yet known whether the four missing dogs from the Elizabeth Street fire were ever recovered.
