Fire destroys 5 apartment units, damages 3 others

A mattress fire at an North Side apartment yesterday could have been doused in minutes. But a language barrier allowed the fire to grow until it burned off the building’s roof and damaged all eight units.Four on the upper floor and the one downstairs where the fire started are a total loss, Columbus Fire Battalion Chief Mark Devine said. The other three have heavy smoke and water damage.

About 75 firefighters on 12 engines and 6 ladder trucks from Mifflin Township and Columbus fought the 5 p.m. blaze at Capital Park Apartments on Albert Avenue, where many residents are Somalis. Some called family members or tried to alert people in the building instead of calling 911. Others speak no English.

The first call to authorities was reported as an unknown emergency, Devine said, and only medics responded. Ten minutes later, medics called in fire crews, but by then, the fire had leapt out a ground-floor bedroom window, climbed up the vinyl siding and reached into the attic.

Ruqiya Abbirhim, a Somali who lives in the complex, was leaving her apartment when she saw flames coming out a downstairs window.

“I knocked on doors to get the people out,” she said. She alerted people in two downstairs apartments before the smoke became too dense and she fled. Then she called 911. The dispatcher said fire crews already were on the way.

By the time firefighters arrived, “we weren’t going to stop that attic fire,” Devine said. “An attic fire is the worst thing we’ve got. It’s a lumber yard … with 30-year-old dry timbers.”

Devine told firefighters to protect the apartment buildings on each side of the fire. In the bucket of an aging ladder truck, two firefighters were hosing off one building when their truck broke down. They couldn’t move the ladder or bucket and “were in a little bit of jeopardy.”

“They were in a heavy cloud of smoke,” Devine said. The ladder truck was replaced, and the firefighters climbed down the ladder unhurt.

National Fire and rescue news source for WC911 - The Columbus Dispatch / read entire article