A firefighter and a civilian were injured Tuesday in a predawn fire that destroyed a Cobb County apartment building.
Cobb fire spokeswoman Denell Boyd said the blaze at the Harmony Meadows complex on South Cobb Drive was reported at 4:34 a.m., and when the first fire crews arrived six minutes later, flames were shooting through the roof of the two-story, brick building.
One firefighter sustained a knee injury, and was treated at a local hospital and released, Boyd said. One other person was taken to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital suffering from smoke inhalation.
Boyd said the 12-unit building was destroyed, displacing nine people. The American Red Cross was en route to assist those displaced residents, she said.
Red Tate has been a courtesy officer at the complex for five years.
Tate, who lives in a different, said he helped evacuate residents when the fire broke out.
“I ran down to get all the residents out,” Tate said.
“That’s my priority, to get everybody to safety, to knock on doors and get everybody out,” he said. “It was real smoky, and flames shooting from the roof.”
Adrina Rodriguez, 15, said the fire apparently started in her 3-year-old sister’s bedroom.
“I think it was an electricity thing,” Rodriguez said. “My little sister screamed and she just ran out the door.”
Rodriguez said she ran into her sister’s room and found the bed in flames and the room filled with smoke.
“Her stuff, everything was in flames,” Rodriguez said. She said that while she heard smoke alarms sounding in other apartments, the alarm in her family’s unit “didn’t even work.”
She said her father “had to go to the hospital because he took in smoke in his body.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
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