Detroit Firefighters Rescue Residents From Burning Apartment Building
DETROIT (WWJ) - Firefighters have rescued multiple residents from a burning apartment building in midtown Detroit.
The fire took off Friday morning at the Selden Manor apartments on Selden and 3rd Street, near the Lodge Freeway and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Most of the residents were able to escape the fire unharmed, but some were trapped in their apartments -- unable to leave due to the massive amount of smoke.
Dequindre Burton's husband Alex was stuck in their home on the fourth floor.
"He's in there! He just called me and woke me up and told me to get over here because he's trapped in there," a hysterical Burton told WWJ's Laura Bonnell.
Firefighters were able to make contact with Burton's husband and get him out of the apartment safely.
Other residents were rescued from their windows by firefighters on a ladder. One person was injured when they jumped from a window to escape the flames.
Danielle Reeves ran from her second story apartment in a panic when the first started, with her little Chihuahua clutched tightly in her arms.
"The hallway we was in where the stairs is at was too smoky so we ran straight to the basement and Adam, the man over there, he let us out, he had a key. We wouldn't have been able to get out because it was padlocked, but he had a key and unlocked it," she said.
Firefighters were able to control the fire and extinguished the flames before the fire spread too far. A battalion chief said the building is still structurally solid, the tenants just have a lot of water cleanup and smoke damage to deal with.
Officials say the fire started somewhere on the building's second floor and was likely electrical in nature, although the official cause is not yet known.
Stay with WWJ Newsradio 950 and CBSDetroit.com for the latest.
