A woman said she had to run through flames early Tuesday to escape a fire that killed her boyfriend and damaged two units at an East Point apartment complex.
Firefighters were dispatched at 3:56 a.m. to a two-story brick building in the 1200 block of Pine Avenue, East Point fire spokeswoman Renita Shelton said in a statement. Heavy smoke and flames were coming from the roof of the building, which has a total of six units.
Resident Sarah Corley said she tried to wake her boyfriend of eight years.
“He woke up, looked around, and I thought he was coming on out,” she said.
Corley, her brother and others in the apartment ran outside.
“We all had to run through the fire to get out the door” because the unit had no fire extinguisher and burglar bars on the windows, Corley said.
Crews arrived just after 4 a.m. and found Corley’s boyfriend, identified as 45-year-old William Dortch, dead in an upstairs apartment.
“That’s the only person I had,” Corley said.
A total of four children and 13 adults were displaced by the fire.
The cause of the fire is under investigation, Shelton said.
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