Crime & Safety

Downed Tree Limb Sparks Fire, Nearly Destroys Midtown Home

A house at 6th Street and Durant Place was badly damaged after a tree limb fell on a power line and sparked a fire.

A Midtown couple is salvaging personal items after a fire nearly destroyed their home early Sunday morning. 

Neighbors said the fire started when a large tree limb fell on a power line at the corner of 6th Street and Durant Place. A circa-1920s brick bungalow caught fire when the electrical wire and the limb fell on the property, neighbors said.

The homeowners were out of town at the time and no one was injured.

Find out what's happening in Midtownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Around 1:30 a.m., Sara Spanjer, who lives in a duplex next door on 6th Street, said she heard a "loud bang" that woke her up.

"Everything shook," Spanjer said.

Find out what's happening in Midtownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

When she came outside, a tree limb was down and there were sparks in the front lawn, she said. Within 30 to 40 minutes, "the whole house was up in flames," Spanjer said. 

Another neighbor, Kara O'Donnell, who lives two doors down in a condo, said the flames reached around 30 feet in the air. "You could see them outside our window," she said. 

O'Donnell said around six to seven fire trucks filled 6th Street to extinguish the fire. "They were worried that the flames would carry over" to other houses in the neighborhood, she said. 

Firefighters were battling the flames until about 5:30 a.m., Spanjer said. "They couldn't put it out right away," she said.  Calls to the Atlanta Fire Department public information office regarding the incident have not been returned.

Spanjer said she feared her house would catch on fire, too, especially when a tree in between the homes caught on fire. "The siding of the house all melted away," but the house did not sustain other damage from the fire, she said.

"The weather last night was really nice," Spanjer said. "It wasn't windy."

Around 11 a.m. Sunday morning, the homeowners and concerned neighbors were helping salvage items from the home. 

"We are just washing clothes as we speak and doing what we can," said Angie Wallace, a neighbor who was fishing items from the burnt residence. 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.

More from Midtown