Two people – one of them a firefighter – were taken to hospital last night after a house fire broke out on Hargrove Street.

City Fire Chief Steve Cordell told WIZS News Monday that Capt. J. Bolton is back at home, and recovering from second- and third-degree burns on both shoulders and arms. “He was attempting to do a search” of the structure to locate possible victims,” Cordell said.

The fire started about 8 p.m. in the kitchen area of a residence at 1224 Hargrove St., he said.

One person was taken to the hospital, but no information is available about the person’s condition.

“She was alive when we got her to the ambulance,” Cordell said in a phone interview with John C. Rose Monday. It is not known to which hospital the victim was taken; Bolton was taken by ambulance to the UNC Burn Center.

Firefighters face risks each time that alarm sounds and they don their protective gear and head to the scene of a fire or a vehicle accident or other emergency call.

Some risks are immediate and obvious – being burned or injured when entering a burning building, for example. But firefighters face the possibility future health challenges as a result of the work they do.

And the recently passed state budget has an item in it that addresses some of those future health challenges – like cancer diagnoses.

Through the N.C. Department of Insurance, $15 million shall be used to establish and administer a pilot program to provide health benefits to eligible firefighters with a new diagnosis of cancer on or after Jan. 1, 2022. This is a supplemental program, and firefighters could receive $25,000 after getting a new cancer diagnosis, up to $50,000. The program also allows for reimbursement of up to $12,000 in medical costs associated with the diagnosis and provides eligible firefighters additional disability assistance.