By Steve Klamkin WPRO News

Several explosions were followed by a smoky, wind-whipped fire that scorched several buildings in a densely-packed neighborhood of East Providence late Tuesday morning, as firefighters scrambled to contain the blaze and rescue several pets.

The blasts were belived to have originated in a building behind a duplex home at 29 Pine Street, but spread to a nearby home at the corner of Oak Ave.., a garage behind that home, and possibly another building.

“We had our hands full,” said East Providence Fire Chief Glenn Quick at the scene. “The incident commander struck a second alarm upon arrival, went to a third alarm, and then we have a fourth alarm staged at our Riverside station.”

Neighbors described hearing several explosions.

“We were standing on the front porch, we heard an explosion,” said John Ferguson who lives nearby. “We saw the smoke billowing, and then I ran down… people were getting out of the house that was on fire.”

“I ran to this blue house over here and knocked on her door to see if she was home. When I initially got there, the woman had a fire extinguisher, but by then the fence had caught on fire and it was just too big to contain,” Ferguson said.

“Yeah, the wind is blowing out of the south, and the fire was on the south part of the garage, and it just went up like a matchbox,” said Craig MacDonald, another neighbor.

Firefighters and personnel from the Providence Canteen were seen taking pets out of the home at the corner of Pine St. and Oak Ave., including a cage filled with what appeared to be numerous ferrets and a lizard wrapped in a blanket that was reunited with its owner. Firefighters took two small dogs out of a nearby home.

The fire was declared under control within about an hour.

Chief Quick had no reports of injuries among fire personnel, but police later said a person who left the scene was later treated for breathing problems.

An investigator from the State Fire Marshal’s office arrived on scene to oversee the investigation.