GUILDERLAND — Concerned neighbors and family members of residents gathered along with fire crews Sunday afternoon in front of a tidy brick home at 3825 Carman Road, between Morningside Road and Carman Plaza.

Smoke billowed from a square that firefighters, perched on a ladder, had cut in the asphalt shingle roof. A gaping black hole was all that was left where a picture window had once been.

Guilderland Fire Chief Scott Jill confirmed that there had been one fatality. “The coroner is here now, and will be working to identify the victim,” he said on Sunday. Investigators were on scene, trying to determine the cause of the fire, he said.

On Wednesday, Jill said that investigators were being thorough, that they wanted to “dot the i’s and cross the t’s” before making an identification. “They don’t want to come out with something, and then find out a week or two later that that wasn’t the case at all, because they got some additional information.”

He said that the painstaking work of carefully identifying the victim was done to be “respectful of the process of fire investigation and especially to be respectful of the victim’s family.”

The call came in at about 4 p.m., Jill said. When Guilderland firefighters arrived, there were visible flames coming out of the front, the right-hand side, and the back of the structure. Firefighters began what he called defensive operations, fighting the fire from outside. Scott said that it was too dangerous for firefighters to enter the building.

Related: How hot is it for firefighters?

A neighbor said she went outside after hearing an explosion; she said she had heard dogs barking in the window of the home.

Scott said later that same night that firefighters believed that the explosion was caused by oxygen tanks that were located in the building. There were three apartments in the building, Jill said, and one resident was on oxygen for medical reasons. On Wednesday, Scott added that he did not know exactly how many explosions there were, but he believed that there was one before his crew arrived, and said there was one just after it got there.

Raymond J. “Jack” Clark, who lives several streets behind the home, said he heard an explosion and that his house rocked before the neighborhood filled with smoke.

Responding crews included McKownville, Westmere, North Bethlehem, Fort Hunter, and Guilderland Center fire departments.

One firefighter was taken to the hospital, Jill said, with a condition that was not life-threatening and that firefighters believed to be heat exhaustion. The temperature at 4 p.m. on Sunday was 85 degrees. On Wednesday, Jill said that that firefighter had been treated and released that same evening and was fine.

Firefighters rescued a cat from the house, securing it in a wire crate. Animal control officer Bob Meyers said the cat “looked OK.”

Carman Road between Morningside Drive and Old State Road was closed for over three hours.

The Albany County assessment rolls state that the property is owned by Julian G. and Linda A. Housel and had a full market value of $211,932.

How hot is it for firefighters?

By Elizabeth Floyd Mair

When firefighters unzip their coats after fighting a fire, said North Bethlehem Fire Chief Chris Fuino, “You can actually feel the heat coming off of them, just pretty much like opening up a pan with foil over it, after it’s been in the oven, and you get that rush of heat.”

He compared the feeling of wearing that gear in summer at a fire scene to “wearing a snowsuit in the summer and then running around.”

Chief Russ Becker of the McKownville Fire Department, who was on scene at the Carman Road fire, where one firefighter was taken to the hospital with symptoms of heat exhaustion, said that studies have been done in which firefighters wore heat sensors under their gear while engaging in different levels of activity. He said that the studies found that even with mild activity in mild weather the temperature inside the gear can rise above 120 degrees.

Becker said, “So hydration and rest periods are very important to us in the fire service.” He added that adequate staffing is important, so that people can be rotated in and out.

He noted that are fire departments all have “automatic mutual aid from the rehab unit,” which is part of the North Bethlehem Fire Department. This unit, Becker said, comes with the ability to provide shade and even a cooled tent.

Becker explained what he meant by “cooled,” saying, “On an 85-degree day, they might be able to get it down to 75 or 80. But it sure is good to have that fan going in there.” The unit then provides firefighters coming off the scene for a break with fluids and monitors their vital signs.

He added that, likewise, in cold weather, the rehab unit heats the tent and “gets some hot liquids in us.”

During the Carman Road fire, firefighters went up on the roof to vent the smoke. That kind of work is always “incredibly hot, amplified by the radiant heat coming out of the fire building,” said Fuino, speaking in general terms since he was not present at the fire.

Becker, who was there, said that in that incident it took “a lot of physical effort to locate all the hot spots in the building.”

He said that it’s always hot up on an asphalt roof. “Those shingles just radiate a lot of heat.”

Becker said that his department does its best to make sure that crew members take breaks regularly.

“We do our best,” he said, “to make sure everybody stays safe and gets back home.”