Darren Denley, 25, was booked on municipal charges of setting fires and crossing police lines, Fire Chief Timothy McConnell said in a statement. At one time the downtown area was blanketed in smoke. High flames and thick smoke were greatly diminished by daybreak, but the fire spread to an adjacent building and kept 90 firefighters busy all morning.
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Only one person is known to have been in the building when the fire was called in around 3:24 a.m. CT.
The fire started early this morning in a four-story building on Canal Street that’s in the Downtown business district.
Investigators said Denley started a fire in the alcove of a business on the block in order to stay warm.
But the fire site itself was a largely unused building on a rundown block. Ground-floor businesses, including a beauty supply store and a cellphone fix business, were closed when the fire broke out.
But the fire site itself was a largely unused building on a rundown block.
There were no reports of injuries, according to Fire Department Superintendent Tim McConnell.
Live television pictures from the scene show flames leaping from the roof.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu praised the firefighters on the scene for their quick response to the blaze.
He said it would be a while before the fire would be under control. City officials said they hoped to open at least some lanes of the closed stretch of Canal in the afternoon.
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In a statement released shortly before 11 a.m. The Roosevelt Hotel said guests were notified about the fire over the hotel’s public address system, telling them they were safe. “We decided we needed to get out”.
