Seymour firefighters extinguished a porch fire Thursday afternoon at a Maple Street home.
There were no injuries.
Seymour Fire Department Assistant Chief Steve Childs said at the scene that crews from Great Hill Hose Company and Citizens Engine Company were called to the two-family home, at 24 Maple St., just after 3 p.m. for a report of a porch fire.
Upon arrival, they found a fire on the second-floor porch in the rear of the house.
Firefighters were able to stretch a hose from a hydrant to the rear of the home and extinguish the blaze soon after, Childs said.
“The guys knocked it down pretty quickly,” he said. “It was actually a fairly small fire when they got here.”
The house is still inhabitable, Childs said. The fire only caused “very minor damage to the porch.”
Fire crews had cleared the scene by about 3:45 p.m.
Raymond St. Jacques, who lives next door, said he was leaving his home when he noticed the blaze and alerted the man who lives on the second floor of the house.
“I came out the back porch and heard a crackling noise and turned around and saw the porch was on fire,” St. Jacques said.
Fire Marshal Paul Wetowitz said Thursday afternoon a man who lives at the house had started a charcoal grill burning on the porch but went inside the home to answer the phone.
After St. Jacques alerted the man to the fire, he called 911 and extinguished some of it with a fire extinguisher before firefighters arrived to finish the job.
Wetowitz said charcoal embers on wood wouldn’t necessarily cause a fire to ignite in most cases, but a welcome mat that was hung on the railing of the porch near the grill ignited, which set a nearby scooter and the porch itself on fire.
The fire marshal said that with grilling season beginning again, people should “always keep at least three to five feet distance from any charcoal grill to anything combustible. Especially when it’s a little breezy out.”