LONDON BLAZE : One man killed, 13 escape Craig Street apartment fire City hall officials say the three-storey building in which David Brian Campbell died contained an illegal number of apartments.
By Nancy Loane | The London Free Press
Flames pour from a three-storey Craig Street house in south London early Wednesday where at 23-year-old man was killed and 13 others escaped, two with minor injuries. Right, residents and investigators examine the damage to the house. Firefighters said 11 people lived in the building’s seven apartments. Damage is estimated at $100,000.
A fire early Wednesday in a south London house killed one man and sent tenants from the six other apartments in the house scrambling to safety.
Killed in the 2 a.m. fire at 61 Craig St. was David Brian Campbell, 23. He worked at a London carpet-cleaning firm, where a colleague described him as “laid-back and trusting.”
Two tenants received minor injuries while eight other tenants and three visitors escaped unharmed.
Deputy Fire Chief Jim Fitzgerald said the fire started in Campbell’s fire-floor apartment kitchen. Investigators believe it started accidentally and estimate damage at $100,000.
Platoon chief Jim Brown credited a man and woman who roused tenants with saving lives. The couple, riding a motorcycle, stopped at the burning house and went inside, alerting tenants by knocking on doors.
“I think it might have (made) the different between one (person dying) and four or five,” Brown said. “I think they were very brave people.”
Tenant Brian Elniski said he escaped his third-floor apartment by going through the front window and jumping onto the roof next door. He said he initially ignored the fire alarm in his apartment because “it goes off all the time. I tried the staircase, but it was filled with some. The fire was really cooking when I jumped out the window.”
Elniski suffered smoke inhalation and another tenant, Dave Woodward, was treated for minor cuts after he escaped through his kitchen window.
Nancy Loane
The London Free Press
RETURNED FOR MOUSE: Tenant Mary Lou Nicholson was eventually allowed to return to her first-floor apartment to rescue her pet mouse, Rex. “I didn’t care about any of must stuff, I just wanted to get him out.” Nicholson’s cats Sushi and Mitsou also survived the blaze.
