Firefighters battling a 2-alarm apartment fire that started before daybreak Monday had to work with less than ideal water pressure, DeKalb fire officials said.
The two-alarm blaze destroyed a three-story building at the Walden Pond complex on Shellbark Road, just north of I-20 between Panola and Wesley Chapel roads. No injuries were reported.
Approximately 15 people were displaced.
DeKalb fire Capt. Eric Jackson said a report of an apartment fire with possible entrapment came in shortly after 5 a.m.
Arriving crews found “heavy smoke and flames coming from the center core of this townhome building with extension through the roof,” Jackson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“We were initially told that there were entrapments, so we quickly deployed our firefighters to the front and the back side to see if we could locate these individuals that were either entrapped or on the verge of jumping,” Jackson said. “We could not locate either one of the two, so we redeployed our firefighters back to fighting this fire.”
Jackson said the 50 to 60 firefighters on the scene “did have some challenges” due to lower water pressure on the cul de sac where the burning building was located.
“We did have water, and we were able to apply that water to the fire, but it wasn’t the pressure we would have liked to supply our three aerial trucks that are here,” he said.
Firefighters attempted to rescue dogs from one of the apartments, but Jackson said the flames “were too heavy for us to actually make entry.”
One of three dogs, who belonged to resident Sajada Bey’s family, was believed to have perished, but Jackson said early Monday evening that it survived the fire despite being chained to the apartment’s balcony. It suffered only a few scratches and a burn on the nose.
Another dog was reportedly found in the woods by a neighbor. A third was saved by the family when they escaped.
Bey, who moved in with her daughter about a month ago, said she first heard a loud banging on the door of the apartment before realizing there was a fire.
“At first, I didn’t answer the door, but then I heard the banging again,” she said. “I opened the curtain and I saw the fire, and I jumped up and hollered to my daughter, so we could get all the children out.”
“All the children are safe, and we’re safe, our neighbors are safe and it’s a blessing,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if we lost everything, we are alive.”
— Staff writer Tyler Estep contributed to this report.
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