1 dead in Norwich house fire

NORWICH, CT (WFSB) - One person was found dead when firefighters responded to a house fire in Norwich on Tuesday.

Crews were called to the the home on Central Avenue near Second Street around 7:50 a.m.

They said they arrived on the scene within three minutes of receiving the call.

Police now have a search warrant to get into the apartment next to the home. They have not said what they are after in there.

The State Fire Marshal is still on scene and part of Central Avenue remains closed 9 hours after this fire started.

Harrison Faison owns the barbershop next door to the multi-family home. There’s a business downstairs.

The apartment where a young couple lives Faison says brothers live upstairs.

“I cut their hair occasionally,” said Faison. “It’s just hard to take in. Your reaction to it is I mean you lose common sense at the moment but when there’s nothing you can do about it, what I can I do, you know”

Battalion chief of the Norwich Fire Department, Michael Dziavit, spoke about the moment firefighters arrived on scene at the time of the incident.

“They were able to start to knock down the fire and in that time they were able to locate an adult male on the second floor who had unfortunately passed away,” said Dziavit.

Other neighbors like Sherry Geer said the building had been recently renovated.

Geer said, “It’s terribly sad especially because they had done so much to rehabilitate the building that needed it.”

Fire crews said the second floor is completely destroyed, and the first floor has some water damage.

The American Red Cross was called to the scene to help people who were forced out by the fire.

“Just another lesson of how God’s will with life is very, very short,” said Faison.

Channel 3 spoke with the first floor tenants off camera today. They said their upstairs neighbor, unidentified by police as of now, was a quiet man that kept to himself.

“There’s not much more I could do, I did what I could do, I called and that was it,” said Faison.

There’s no word word on what caused the fire.

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