Mother, 3 children jump out of window after DeKalb apartment goes up in flames

February 7, 2022 DeKalb County: Standing in front of their burned down apartment complex on Monday, Feb. 7, 2022, Tquaneca Brown (left) talked about throwing her three children to neighbor, Kieley Smith (right) during an overnight fire in DeKalb County. Residents of a DeKalb County apartment complex were forced to jump out of their windows when a fire broke out early Monday morning and quickly set their building ablaze. Kieley Smith said he woke up to flames and smoke filling his living room at the Orchard Walk Apartments on Flat Shoals Parkway. He and his wife jumped out their window and began alerting their neighbors, starting with Tquaneca Brown and her three children, who lived in the second-story apartment above them. “We went over waking everybody up,” Smith told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We had to catch her kids out the window. We had to tell them to jump out the window.” Smith said he alerted another neighbor by picking up a dumbbell and throwing it through the man’s window. Everyone inside the eight-unit apartment building was able to make it out, but Smith’s 5-month-old German Shepherd could not be rescued in time, he said. Three people were sent to a hospital, and a DeKalb County firefighter sustained cuts and bruises, according to Channel 2 Action News. The conditions of those injured was unknown Monday. Brown said she and her three children, ages 5, 6, and 7, are traumatized but grateful to be alive. “I’m just lucky that my neighbors were outside to catch them, because other than that we would not have been able to get out,” Brown said. While the cause of the fire remains under investigation, Smith believes it started in his living room by a roommate’s unattended candle. No further details were released. According to the Red Cross of Georgia, a total of 16 units at Orchard Walk were impacted by the fire, and one of the units was vacant. Volunteers with the organization have provided emergency assistance to seven families, a total of 23 people, and are working to reach out to the other eight families who were displaced. “Caseworkers will continue to work with the families in the days ahead to help them get back on their feet, offering additional recovery guidance and resources,” Red Cross spokesperson Sherry Nicholson said in an email. (John Spink / John.Spink@ajc.com)