All safe after fire

By TIM PRESTON
The Independent

ASHLAND September 05, 2008 05:23 pm

— Neighbors sprang into action to make sure everyone got outside safely late Thursday afternoon when a fire erupted in an apartment building at 2328 Winchester Ave.
As firefighters attacked the burning building with hoses and hand tools, neighbors asked around to make sure everyone was safe, and then turned their attention to finding places for everyone to stay.
“A lot of people from across the street at Vincent Apartments went up in that house. They didn’t think twice. Heroes are born every day,” Jonathan M.D. Cook said with a hint of pride as he praised his neighbors’ quick response.
Nathan Hayes was one of those neighbors who saw the smoke and took immediate action. When he was told an older woman was believed to be alone in one of the upstairs apartments, Hayes climbed a back balcony and kicked the door in.
“I had to kick that back door several times to get in,” Hayes recalled, standing by an ambulance after receiving oxygen and being checked out by emergency medical technicians. “I asked if there was anybody in there and she said, ‘I’m back here. I can’t get out.’ I crawled on my hands and knees down the hallway and grabbed her and dragged her out. The whole apartment was full of smoke. She was back there coughing and gagging.”
Hayes, 29, said he didn’t consider his own safety when he went into the burning building.
“Anytime I can help, I do it,” he said. “That’s my way of paying back the world.”
Mike Floyd, who lived in one of the apartments, said the fire caught him completely off guard.
“I don’t know what happened, man. We were sitting out on the front porch right there and I heard a ‘Boom, Boom, Boom.’ And I saw smoke coming out,” said Floyd, who lived in Apartment 2. “I don’t understand how it happened. Everybody is OK. I had a mama cat and a baby up there I couldn’t get out, but all the people who lived there are in good shape.”
Floyd added all three of his smoke alarms went off Tuesday, although he was unable to find any reason for the alarms to activate.
Watching the smoke roll away from the roof, Jessica Ward said she had been cleaning an apartment in the building minutes before the blaze was noticed.
“I had just left. Five minutes after I left it was on fire,” she said, shaking her head slightly and adding she spoke to another resident of the building who reported hearing some sort of explosion before the smoke and flames appeared. “I thought, ‘So much for cleaning house.’”
Ashland firefighters remained on the scene late Thursday evening and appeared to have the fire extinguished. A fire department official at the scene said no cause for the fire had yet been determined.
TIM PRESTON can be reached at tpreston@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2651.