Hani El-Shourafa holds Bailey, a 10-week-old shepherd-husky mix, who was rescued by firefighters from a three-storey apartment building on Westlake St. in London on Thursday. Firefighters rescued some residents using ladders after heavy smoke trapped them in third-floor units. No one was injured.
(CRAIG GLOVER/The London Free Press/QMI Agency)
Residents of a southeast London apartment building are feeling lucky after escaping unharmed from an afternoon blaze.
A small kitchen fire in a unit at a three-story walk-up on Westlake St. forced residents to flee the building after thick, black smoke spread through a door left open by a tenant who unsuccessfully tried to extinguish the flames.
The fire trapped Krista Melvin and her boyfriend in their third-floor bedroom.
“We opened our bedroom door and a rush of smoke came barreling into the room,” said Melvin, who had been taking a nap with her boyfriend. “We kind of started panicking.”
Another resident who had already left the building alerted firefighters to the trapped pair, who were taken out through their bedroom window and down a ladder to safety.
A tenant who fled the building activated the alarm, which woke Melvin and her partner, said platoon chief Tom Wells.
“The ceiling collapsed, and we were worried about the fire spreading,” Wells said.
Early estimates pegged damage at more than $100,000.
But for Melvin, who watched firefighters from the warmth of a nearby bus, she escaped with the most important things.
“People wonder, if your house burned down, what’s the first thing you’d grab?” she asked, clutching two backpacks holding her cats. “My most important things were my cats and my boyfriend. That’s all I needed to get out of the building with me.”
