More than three weeks after a 37-year-old Buckhead woman died in a condo fire, Atlanta fire will return to the Pharr Road area to pass out free smoke detectors to residents who don’t have them.
Officials plan to go door to door starting at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Atlanta Fire Rescue spokesman Cortez Stafford said.
Rachel Thorn was pulled from a burning second-story condo Feb. 21 at Pharr Manor Condominiums, and she died the next day, fire officials told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Her sister Nancy Berger told Channel 2 Action News pictures of Thorn's smile serve as daily reminders of her laugh.
“We’ve been trying to laugh, through our tears,” Berger said.
She told Channel 2 Thorn was asleep at 4 a.m. when a grease fire from the downstairs kitchen of Thorn’s neighbor quickly spread to impact her sister’s unit.
When crews got to the Pharr Road condo, they found flames erupting from two condos and quickly spreading into the attic area of the entire four-unit building, Stafford said at the time of the fire.
Firefighters quickly got word Thorn lived on the second floor and was missing.
Thorn later died from injuries she sustained in the fire, which displaced seven other people.
Thorn’s rescue dog, Bunny, also died in the fire.
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