DAYTON, Ohio (WDTN) – Firefighters responded to reports of an apartment fire in the 5100 block of Northcrest Drive in Dayton at around 7 p.m. Tuesday.
2 NEWS Reporter Jordan Bowen spoke with the man who lives in the apartment where the fire started.
“When I turned back around it had caught on fire,” Charles Varisco said. “The skillet had caught on fire.”
Charles Varisco recounted the terrifying moments in his kitchen when he tried to put out a grease fire.
“I grabbed some flour to try and put it out, but it didn’t do nothing,” Varisco said. “But make it spread across the stove at that point I was kind of confused what to do.
In that moment, Varisco turned to his neighbor who called 911. Varisco’s apartment unit sustained significant damage and so did 3 other units in the building. Fire officials say the fire spread in no time.
“The fire got in and burnt out the kitchen got into the walls,” Chief Bowers said. “Ran into the second floor and then got into the attic.”
Chief Bowers explains the attic is an open space and fire could have quickly spread if not for a timely response.
“We were able to get crews in all those apartments get the ceiling open up,” Chief Bower said. “And stop the fire at 5112 so it didn’t burn the other wing off.”
No injuries were reported. The Red Cross is helping locate the displaced families with temporary places to stay.
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HUBER HEIGHST, Ohio (WKEF/WRGT) - Seven people were displaced by a fire that got into a common attic space at Eagle Ridge Apartments on Northcrest Drive Tuesday.
East District Chief Rennes Bowers said the fire was sparked on one end of the complex by cooking that was left unattended, and it worked its way up into the walls and eventually into the attic.
The attic is common space that allowed the flames to spread down the four units without anything specific to stop it.
Bowers said they were lucky to stop the fire where they did, knocking down the flames before it got around the bend in the complex.