One man dead after afternoon house fire near Ninth and Pennsylvania streets

Firefighters respond to a house fire at 923 Pennsylvania St., Thursday afternoon, March 31, 2016.

One man is dead after a Thursday afternoon house fire in East Lawrence, fire officials said.

At 2:49 p.m. emergency responders were dispatched to a one-story home at 923 Pennsylvania St., said Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical Division Chief Eve Tolefree. Lawrence Police officers arrived on the scene first.

At the scene, responders found a man, partially inside the home, and pulled him away from the fire, Tolefree said. He was declared dead shortly afterward.

The man’s name has not yet been released.

The fire was fully extinguished by 3:07 p.m., Tolefree said, although firefighters and police officers remained on scene to investigate.

A cause for the fire or preliminary damage estimates were not available Thursday afternoon, Tolefree said. She did say the home was not considered a crime scene.

No other injuries were reported in the fire, Tolefree said.

This is the second deadly fire in Lawrence in as many days.

One man died Wednesday in an early-morning house fire on Rawhide Lane.

Police said the fire followed a domestic dispute and reports that the man was armed with a handgun and threatening the home’s occupants.

Further information on the cause of Wednesday’s fire and the name of the victim were not being released Thursday afternoon, Tolefree said.

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