ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Albuquerque firefighters hit the ground running Thursday morning at a boarded up house on Georgia Street near Trumbull. It wasn’t the first time the crew had been there.

“It’s a building that’s burned before, the crews know it pretty well, the back porch recently burned off of it,” Albuquerque Fire Rescue Lt. Jason Fejer said.

“All of a sudden the smoke smell started happening and started billowing within the hallways, building, in the classrooms, we started getting lots of reports so we called 911,” said Vanessa Sena, the dean of students of Emerson Elementary School nearby.

Emerson Elementary is just across the street from that now-destroyed house.

“The kids started coughing in the hallways, I had to pull the fire alarm and made sure everyone exited to the back of the school, in the field,” Sena said.

After about 40 minutes, they were able to get back to business as usual with the help of air purifiers.

That fire was actually the final battle of a nonstop 12 hours for firefighters – especially for Engine 11, the southeast Albuquerque crew.

“It’s not just that one district, although Engine 11 held the brunt of it, all the districts around 11 felt it, they were up all night, nobody slept,” Fejer said.

Fejer said the string of fires overnight started on Dakota Street. They were called to a shed fire just after midnight.

Not even two hours later – and less than a half mile away – there was another shed fire on Kentucky Street.

Then crews ended up battling another fire in another detached shed, just around the block on Georgia Street.

Fejer said there weren’t any obvious signs these could all be warming fires, but that’s not off the table.

“There could very well be a large population of people trying to stay warm on the streets at night,” Fejer said.

Fejer said they are asking for the public’s help. If you saw anything suspicious in that area last night, or know anything about how the fires started, you’re asked to call police.