By Steve Klamkin WPRO News

A roaring, three-alarm fire that broke out before dawn on Friday destroyed a home on Lincoln Avenue in Cranston, and damaged several neighboring houses, leaving several pets dead but no residents or firefighters were injured.

“It had a tremendous headway when we got here, it was already fully involved to two houses,” said Cranston Fire Chief James Warren.

He said the fire was reported after 3:00 A.M., and quickly went to three alarms.

“We had every single piece of apparatus in the Cranston Fire Department here today, yes,” Warren said at the scene, several hours after the fire was contained and the lead house was reduced to a smoking pile of rubble.

“So, there is a front house and a rear house, two houses, and there is some type of structure in between those houses that caught fire, we’re not sure what it is, it’s still under investigation. But, that was fully involved, it got both houses fully involved,” he said.

“It did singe the back house, another house in the rear, and the house on the right-hand side. We had to evacuate all those people out of those houses,” Warren said. He did not have an immediate estimate of how many people were displaced, but the American Red Cross later reported it was helping six families, including 13 adults and four children.

“There were some pets that were lost, rabbits, at least one cat. No injuries to anybody, no injuries to civilians or firefighters,” Chief Warren said, adding the cause of the fire remained under investigation.

Several hours after the fire, utility crews were on scene, working to restore power to the remainder of the neighborhood.

This story has been updated with information from the American Red Cross