HOLDERNESS, N.H. --
Two people had to leap from the second floor of a building when a six-alarm fire tore through a first-floor apartment.
Officials said nearly a dozen people are homeless after the fire at the Squam Meadows Apartments building. Neighbors said the fire seemed to spread quickly at about 11 p.m. Thursday.
"It looked like flames just throughout the whole right side of the building," neighbor Tanya Thibeault said. "It was just everywhere."
Thibeault lives next door, and her sister was one of the tenants in the burned building. According to the Red Cross, there were nine people living in the apartments. Everyone made it out safely, but two had to jump for their lives.
"The people who were on the second floor, their only way out was the stairway on the other end, which was fully involved by the time they got out of the building," Chief Elinore Mardin said. "So they had to jump from the second floor down to the ground."
The two residents were not injured, and no injuries were reported among any of the firefighters, who came from 24 towns to assist. Mardin said fighting the fire was fairly straightforward, but getting the resources to the blaze was difficult.
"It's a few thousand feet to each water supply, and just getting the manpower here to set the 4-inch hose up to supply us with water," she said.
Officials said they believe the fire began in a stove in the first-floor apartment that was set to self-cleaning mode. The stove either got too hot or short-circuited the electrical system, starting the fire.
