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A few minutes later, he said, he walked into his backyard and saw the house next door on fire.
“It was blazing,” Keith said.
Keith said the home in the 700 block of Elsmere Street had been vacant for about a week. Keith grabbed a garden hose and tried to keep his own house from catching fire, he said.
The heat from the fire melted some of the siding on his house and garage, he said.
Middletown and Monroe fire investigators are trying to determine what caused the fire. Middletown's arson dog, Scottie, was on scene this morning.
Keith said he spoke to the landlord and was told the house recently was rented.
He said he had never had “any trouble” out of the neighbors.
“It’s sad what has happened,” he said. “The good news is we didn’t get burned up.”
FIRST REPORT:
A man used a garden hose to prevent flames from a vacant house fire from spreading to his home in Middletown.
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Firefighters responded to the vacant house with heavy flames coming from it in the 700 block of Elsmere Street Wednesday around 6 a.m.
There was significant interior damage to the house and the back of the exterior, said officials with the Middletown Fire Department.
The fire did not spread to any nearby homes and no one was injured, said Middletown fire officials on scene.
We are working to learn the cause of the fire this morning.