Investigators are trying to determine what started a Hamtramck house fire early today that forced firefighters to rescue seven people from a second-floor porch.
As flames roared at the back door of her second-floor walk-up with the only stairs down on fire, mother Judith Arnold screamed through her home.
"I was asleep and I heard something beeping," Arnold, 30, said today, describing the 3:30 a.m. blaze in her home in the 2100 block of Trowbridge. "I saw fire trying to come in the back of my door. I started to scream, that's how I woke everyone up."
With the back porch and stairway on fire, Arnold; her three children, ages 9, 7 and 2; her children's father, her sister, and her sister's 1-year-old daughter ran to the front porch. Outside, they found Hamtramck Fire Department firefighters from a station a block away on Caniff already stringing fire hose out front.
"'I was about to get rescued,'" she said was the first thing that came to mind as smoke billowed from inside her apartment. "I didn't want to jump, but I would've if I had to. They said they seen it from their firehouse."
As the panicked residents stood trapped on the second-floor porch, firefighter Andy Capo climbed an extension ladder and rescued them as Capt. Christopher Sanchez held the ladder.
"He carried (the children) down one-by one," said Sanchez, who originally thought only three children and three women were in the home. Capo then accompanied the three adults to make sure they descended the ladder safely.
"He did an awesome job," Sanchez said, adding that Capo, who's been with the department for about 4 1/2 years, joined the department around his 40th birthday.
Downstairs tenant Patricia Mead, 47, also escaped unharmed with her 72-year-old mother.
"When I heard the windows popping, I thought someone was breaking in," she said. "I said, 'C'mon, mama, there's a fire.' "
Other firefighters on the scene went into the home to try to extinguish the blaze, while another sprayed adjoining homes to prevent the fire from spreading. No one was injured, and those rescued did not need medical attention because of Capo's quick action, Sanchez said.
"He didn't hesitate. He knew what had to be done. He made sure everybody on that second-floor porch was brought to safety," Sanchez said. "He should be commended for that. He did a great job."
Capo declined to talk about the incident as he finished his shift this morning. The fire burned off the back of the home's two floor and attic, making it a total loss, Sanchez said. The cause of the blaze is still under investigation.
Arnold, who lost everything in the fire and doesn't have renter's insurance, said she's just glad everyone escaped unharmed.
"It was real scary because I never thought this would happen to me," she said.
Mead, who spent more than six months in the hospital when she was 7 years old after suffering first-, second- and third-degree burns in an apartment fire in Detroit, said she's also grateful no one was hurt.
"I just thank God me and my mom made it out -- and the people upstairs," she said.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
