A woman who climbed out of her bedroom window and took refuge on a second-floor balcony of a burning apartment building was rescued by Poplar Bluff firefighters early Sunday morning.
City firefighters say the incident highlights a potentially dangerous trend they have seen lately, individuals calling a fire station directly rather than 911.
Calls to a specific station, as happened Sunday, can result in delays if personnel are already out on a call, said fire Chief Ralph Stucker.
The quickest way to get help, he cautioned, is to call 911, which is staffed at all times.
Fortunately, no injuries resulted from Sunday’s incident, although there was significant damage to the 1221 W. Harper St. property.
Firefighters from the city’s three stations responded to the call at 12:39 a.m.
They evacuated the eight-unit apartment complex and used a ladder to help a woman on the balcony escape the blaze.
“She was panicking,’ said Poplar Bluff Battalion Chief Mike Moffitt. “She just was real anxious and wanted to get off, get down. She got out her bedroom window. The fire was in the living room outside of her bedroom.”
“She was just really nervous,’’ Moffitt said. “She needed me to keep her calm and help her down the ladder. We climbed down the ladder together.”
The fire appears to have started in a wall socket in the kitchen in the unit below the one occupied by the woman on the balcony, according to firefighters. Firefighters did not identify the woman from the balcony and said she left the scene quickly.
Four of the building’s apartments were destroyed and are unlivable, according to fire officials. One displaced resident reached by phone, John Franklin, called the incident “depressing.” The Red Cross was called to help find temporary shelter for the displaced residents.
The cause of the fire is “undetermined but it looks like a plugin in the kitchen,’’ said Keith Wilcut of Fairdealing, a partner in KW Property Management LLC, which owns the property. “Everybody was fine.”
Stucker urged the public to call 911 to report any fires.
At ‘’911, there’s personnel there 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You call that — someone answers the phone. You call down here, if (firefighters) would have went out right before (the call) for smoke in the area, or a traffic accident, or an alarm call, nobody’s here when the phone rings,” Stucker said.
“It happens more than what you’d expect,’’ the chief continued. “It’s scary for us because if we were not in quarters, that call comes in and doesn’t go to anybody.
“In our business, every second counts. If we’re delayed by a minute, or two minutes or five minutes, that fire progresses, keeps getting bigger, bigger, bigger, and the likelihood of survival or us getting to somebody is greatly diminished.”
Firefighters used 2,000 gallons of water to extinguish the blaze. They cleared the scene at 6:16 Sunday morning.
Posting a comment requires free registration:
Menu
