An Akron man was killed early Monday and a woman was rescued from a front-porch roof at an Oberlin Street house fire on the city's southwest side, authorities said.
The Summit County Medical Examiner's Office said Rodney Leon Dowdy, 53, of Golda Place in Akron, was discovered in a second-floor bedroom within minutes after the fire was reported at 3:03 a.m.
Akron Fire Capt. Al Bragg said a man in the neighborhood made the emergency call and reported that "flames were coming from everywhere."
Bragg said the home, in the 800 block of Oberlin Street, had no electricity and no smoke alarms.
Investigators suspect the cause of the fire was careless smoking or careless use of candles used for light in the house.
Bragg said he had no information about the relationship of Dowdy and the woman, 50, who was rescued by ladder from the porch roof.
Bragg declined to identify the woman, citing privacy regulations because she was hospitalized.
A medical examiner's spokesman said Dowdy was not breathing when he was found. He was declared dead at the scene at 3:58 a.m.
"Most people who die in fires, it's not the flames that actually kill them. They die from the deadly gas, carbon monoxide, which acts like an anesthetic and puts you in a deep sleep," Bragg said.
He said Monday morning's fire was the second within a week in which there were no smoke alarms in the house.
Last Tuesday morning, firefighters rescued a teenager and her grandmother from the upper floors of a burning home in the 800 block of Sheridan Avenue. Bragg said there were no smoke alarms in that house, either.
Firefighters rescued a 17-year-old girl who was hanging out of a third-floor window and brought out her 70-year-old grandmother from a second-floor room, he said.
"We were just lucky with the grandmother. She was not breathing when we took her out, and we were able to revive her at the scene," he said.
The Oberlin Street house, with an estimated value of $35,000, and all of its contents, valued at $5,000, were destroyed, Bragg said.
He said there were no children or pets in the house.
The Oberlin Street homeowner was listed in fire department records as Donald Bulgrin of Uniontown. A phone number listed for him was not in service.
Bragg said the circumstances of the two fires should be a warning to area residents about the importance of having smoke alarms in their homes.
"Smoke alarms are proved to double your chances of surviving a fire," he said.
Bragg said one firefighter was taken to a hospital after becoming ill, but it was not as a result of Monday's fire.
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
