Several residents were injured Friday in a predawn fire at a south DeKalb County condominium complex.
DeKalb fire Deputy Chief Norman Augustin told the AJC that the 911 call came in about 4:40 a.m. reporting possible entrapment at the Tamarack Condominiums on Blazing Pine Path off Flat Shoals Parkway.
“On the 911 call, people were screaming in the background,” he said.
The first arriving crews found heavy smoke and fire coming from an upstairs unit. Those crews also discovered that the residents initially thought to be trapped had “self-extricated”, but were injured, Augustin said.
He said three peope were taken to a local hospital, two with minor burns and one with “major lacerations.”
Gracelyn Bell, who lives in another building in the complex, said that she saw the three injured residents, two adults and a child.
“The man had a cut across his neck and the woman had cuts across her stomach,” Bell said. “The man, especially, he looked like he was very hurt.”
“After the fact, I heard they had jumped through the back window,” she said.
Augustin said the fire apparently started in an upstairs unit, “but extended down into the floor system, which presents a dangerous situation for our crews.”
Despite the dangerous conditions, Augustin said no firefighters were injured.
The cause of the fire, which heavily damaged six of the eight units in the building, has not been determined.
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