Potomac Gardens.

The senior housing building in Potomac Gardens, the public housing complex in Southeast D.C. in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, caught on fire Thursday night. Many know of Potomac Gardens because of the various disagreements the surrounding neighbors have had with its existence, but I know the Gardens because for three years I tutored kids who live there.

Following the two-alarm fire, a 79-year-old woman is in critical condition in the hospital. Two other women were in the hospital for burns but have since been released, according to Steve Park, the director of Little Lights, the organization I used to to tutor with. One firefighter was injured, treated, and released. Forty residents of the building, most of them elderly, were displaced following the fire.

The fire was an accident, caused by a malfunctioning electrical appliance in the kitchen of the apartment where the 79-year-old woman lived. The other two people injured also lived on the same floor.

Park tells me that he spoke with DC Housing Authorities, who runs the units, and that “the displaced residents are hoping to be able to move back into (their apartments) tonight. There was not serious damage to other units.” The biggest damage seems to have been caused by water and smoke. A lot of the furniture and clothes in the other units might need to be replaced.