Wednesday night's fire in East Austin has been ruled arson, according to Austin fire investigators.
The fire that ripped through an abandoned house at 1706 E. 12th Street caused about $300,000 in damages, officials said in an issued statement Thursday.
Firefighters responded to a two-alarm fire that started at the abandoned two story building on Salinas Street. The building is next to Mount Carmel Masonic Temple and the NAACP offices.
Flames threatened the Mount Carmel Masonic Temple and the Austin NAACP offices next door.
Officials said the NAACP Headquarters sustained $100,000 in damage from exposure.
It took crews about an hour to get the flames under control.
Crews had to cut power in the area to avoid electric shock, but couldn't shut off the lines directly near the fire.
"Those lines feed the university, Brackenridge, and the sub-transmission lines into downtown, so we were not able to shut the power off to those, which made it very difficult to put our aerials in the air and get large amounts of water on it where we needed it," Gary Wilkes with Austin Fire Department said.
The power did come back on about an hour later.
The outage affected about a thousand utility customers.
Anyone with information about the fire should call AFD Arson Investigators at (512) 974-0240.
News 8 will bring you more information as it develops.
