A man sleeping in an accessory dwelling at an Antioch warehouse suffered minor burns early this morning when the building caught fire roughly a quarter-mile from the nearest fire hydrant, according to officials with the Contra Costa County Fire Protection District.
“He woke up to find himself surrounded by flames,” fire district spokesman Steve Hill said. “He was able to escape on his own but he suffered minor burns.”
The man was treated at the scene by medics and then released, according to Hill.
About 75 percent of the building was involved in the blaze when crews arrived on scene in the 1500 block of Walnut Avenue just after the fire was reported at 12:30 a.m.
In order to fight the fire, crews had to truck the water in from the nearest fire hydrant roughly 1,200 feet away. Hill said that’s not uncommon in certain parts of the county.
“It’s a bit of a challenge for us,” Hill said. “We know where the hydrants are, of course, and we plan for that.”
Anticipating the lack of an available water source, the district had already dispatched a water tender, a vehicle with a large tank designed for transporting water for firefighters, before they arrived on scene. An estimate of the damage caused by the blaze was not immediately available Tuesday afternoon. Hill said the cause of the fire was still under investigation.
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