May 04--While her husband slept, Hilda Perez was watching television in their 220 S. Fifth St. apartment Friday when she suddenly heard him screaming from the bedroom.
"Get out! Get out!" she recalled her husband, Jovany Burgos, yelling upon waking up. "There's a fire!"
Outside about 1:30 p.m., Perez said she could hardly see her neighbor's fourth-floor porch through the heavy plume of smoke billowing into the skies above Reading.
And after rushing out barefooted, she could only watch from the sidewalk in borrowed slippers as crews battled the two-alarm blaze.
None of the four-story apartment's residents were harmed, said First Deputy Fire Chief Nicholas Amicone, but one firefighter was taken to Reading Hospital with what appeared to be a second-degree burn on his foot.
The fire was reported at 1:26 p.m., and Amicone quickly raised it to a second alarm based upon the building's size and the fire's rapid spread. South Fifth Street was closed to traffic between Spruce and Chestnut streets.
"I knew this block, I knew these buildings and I knew we'd have a big building," Amicone said. "The fire was moving at a quick pace."
The bulk of the fire was knocked down within 10 minutes, Amicone said, but the blaze was not deemed under control until about 2:30 p.m.
Amicone said he considered showering the building from ladder trucks with hundreds of gallons of water, but he opted against that course once firefighters found their way to the fourth floor through thick smoke.
"You got to get up close and personal to finish the job," Amicone said.
Lt. Keith Moyer of the city fire marshal's office said the blaze displaced all of the building's 20 residents because the power had to be shut off. The cause of the fire could not be determined Friday, he said, but the investigation will continue.
Moyer confirmed that the blaze broke out on the fourth floor, gutting one apartment and leaving another with heavy smoke damage.
"The fourth floor will not be inhabitable for awhile," Moyer said. "It's pretty much shot."
Lower floors sustained water damage.
David Roldan, owner of the building for eight years, said the fire left at least two apartments uninhabitable.
"That doesn't mean all the others are livable," he said, not knowing the full extent of the damage.
Roldan, who is insured, said repairing the damage will cost well in excess of $75,000.
The Kenhorst, Mount Penn, Spring Township and West Reading departments also responded to the fire.
"I'm retiring in three weeks," Amicone said. "I'm going to miss this -- working with people like this is something you don't get to do too often."
Contact C. Ryan Barber: 610-371-5081 or [email protected].
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