One person had to be rescued by firefighters Friday morning after a Cobb County apartment building went up in flames for the second time.
The two-alarm blaze broke out before 8 a.m. at the Ashley Mill Apartments in the 1200 block of Powder Springs Road in Marietta.
Marietta fire Assistant Chief Kelly Caldwell said arriving units found heavy fire coming from the front side of all three floors of the three-story building, as well as from the roof.
Caldwell told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that firefighters “found a gentleman hanging from a back floor balcony or window.”
Firefighters went up an interior stairwell to reach the man, Caldwell said.
“The crew went inside, did a quick assessment of the patient and determined that he was too unstable to carry down the ladder on the outside of the building and brought him to the interior stairwell,” he said.
The man was taken to a local hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation, Caldwell said.
Caldwell said the same building was involved in a fire several years ago.
“The initial building was built before the fire codes required sprinkler systems, so once the building was rebuilt from the previous fire, that new section of it did have sprinkler systems added,” he said. “The section of the building that was involved in the fire this morning did not have the sprinklers.”
Caldwell said that while six of the building’s 24 units sustained fire damage Friday, “just about every unit was affected by smoke damage.”
Kamesha Sims, who lives in the building that burned, said she was at work when the blaze broke out.
“I got a phone call and they told me that my apartment building was in flames, and I just rushed home,” Sims said.
She said she has renter’s insurance, as should everyone in the building.
“It’s automatic, part of the rent,” she said. “You have to have it, so that’s not an issue.”
Cobb fire officials have not yet said what sparked the blaze, but Sims said she and others in the building have been having recent electrical problems.
“They’ve been having electrical shortages where the lights flicker and go off and you never know what’s going on,” she said.
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