A FIRE IN A HIGH-RISE APARTMENT BUILDING near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, early Thursday morning presented a challenge for Allegheny County firefighters. The building is operated by the county housing authority and is populated by elderly and infirm residents.
WTAE-TV
The fire began in a 5th-floor apartment where an 79-yr.-old woman apparently fell asleep in her chair while smoking a cigarette. When the fire got rolling, she fled to her balcony where she became trapped by the fire in her unit. A customer at a gas station across the street saw the flames and called in the alarm. First on the scene were two police officers who saw the lady in distress on the balcony. In a marvelous display of ingnuity, the cops went to the 6th-floor and charged a line from a wall hose cabinet into the apt. above the fire. They then extended the line out to the balcony above and aimed the hose stream down onto the victim. The are being credited with saving the woman’s life. She is hospitalized with 2nd- and 3rd-degree burns.
The arriving fire units found dozens of people who were trapped in their apartments by the heavy smoke that filled the upper floors of the building. WTAE-TV Ch. 4 has a good video report from the fire scene:
The housing authority estimates the damages at $1.5 million.
