At 16:53 hrs (4:53 pm), Station 5 along with Station 4 (Malvern) and Engine 61 (Kimberton) were alerted for a reported house fire in the 100 block of Forge Court in the Charlestown Oaks subdivision of Charlestown Township.

Assistant Chief 5 (Brown) responded and was advised of smoke coming from the laundry room. Assistant 5 arrived a short time later with a three story middle of the row townhome with nothing showing from the exterior of the building.

Engine 5-2, Engine 61, and Ladder 4 made the response and were updated with Assistant 5's report of a dryer fire with extension. Assistnat 5 established "Forge Court Command" and requested the "Working Fire Dispatch" (WFD) to bring additional resources to the scene. The WFD realerted the initial companies, and added Engine 47-2 (Lionville) for the Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) and MICU-67 (West End of Phoenixville) for Advanced Life Support (ALS).

Engine 5-2 arrived and stretched an attack handline to the lower level where they had a laundry room involved. Engine 5-2 crews were backed up by the crew from Engine 5-3 and led off an agressive attack on the fire, and were able to quickly knock the fire, stopping it's spread to the rest of the dwelling.

While East Whiteland firefighters were initiating fire attack and suppression, Malvern and Kimberton crews searched the dwelling for victims and fire extension, and preformed overhaul of the laundry room and adjacent areas.

Lionville units were returned shortly after arrival and MICU 67 and Ambulance 4-1 handled firefighter rehab.

The fire is under investigation by the Chester County Fire Marshal's Office. There were no reported Firefighter or Civilian injuries.

All units cleared the scene around 7 pm. Thank you to the Paoli Fire Company (St. 3) for standing by in our station and covering our local while we operating at this fire scene.

Photos courtesy of the Malvern Fire Company and Kevin Skymba.