Dive Brief:
- A five-alarm fire on Tuesday consumed a residential building under construction in Houston, with roaring flames and black smoke billowing into the afternoon sky above the city's Montrose area.
- Like the apartment building recently destroyed in San Francisco, the wooden structure had not yet reached the point when a fire-suppression system would be installed.
- The cause of the blaze was not apparent. Houston fire officials said there would be an investigation.
Dive Insight:
The project in the 2400 block of West Dallas had some neighborhood opponents who felt it is too close to a historic cemetery. Firefighters were unsure if they would be able to stop the fire before the building collapsed, which would make it harder to track down where it began.
