Fire Guts a South Street Pizza Joint
By Robin Culverwell and Kim Glovas
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Fire has heavily damaged a landmark pizza shop in South Philadelphia.
Fire was reported about 10:30 this morning at Lorenzo and Sons Pizza, at 3rd and South Streets. Dozens of firefighters arrived to find smoke coming from the first floor of the building.
Shop manager Giusseppe Pulizzi says he was at the bank when he got a frantic call from his employees to come back.
"They saw smoke coming from an exhaust tube, which leads over to the oven, but we weren't cooking anything so I knew it wasn't anything turned on," he tells KYW Newsradio. "As soon as he turned the exhaust on, saw a little bit of smoke and then tried to put it out, I guess with an extinguisher, it just came back."
Deputy fire chief Joseph McGraw says the building's construction made it difficult to extinguish.
"No access to the rear at all," he says. "As you can see, the front has signage up the whole thing, no windows in front, so we ventilated the roof and made an interior attack on the fire."
They needed more than an hour and a half to control the flames.
Fire officials say all three floors suffered heat and smoke damage. The fire marshal is investigating. One firefighter suffered a knee injury but was expected to be all right.
