A woman pulled from a burning apartment in DeKalb County Monday morning has died, authorities said.
The fire, in the 2300 block of Peachwood Circle just east of I-85, was reported about 5:30 a.m.
Tony Brown, who lives in a building adjacent to the one that burned, said that when he was first alerted to the fire, “I came outside, there were flames just shooting out of the top floor, thick black smoke all in the sky, soot falling, everything.”
Brown said firefighters soon pulled a woman from the burning building.
“They started CPR, she was still unresponsive, then they brought her to the ambulance,” Brown said. He said the woman was “still unresponsive in the back of the ambulance, then they took her to the hospital.”
DeKalb fire Operations Chief Norman Augustin told the AJC late Monday morning that the woman had died.
The woman’s name was not immediately available.
DeKalb fire Assistant Chief Steve Ham told the AJC the fire was first reported as a possible grass fire, but the first units on the scene found “a lot of fire” in the building.
While some firefighters began putting water on the fire, others began searching the building, and that’s when they found the victim.
Crews “initiated CPR within seconds of getting her out of the building,” Ham said.
Ham said several of the 10 units in the building were vacant.
He said investigators were on the scene, trying to determine what caused the fire.
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