Tenants unhurt by laundry room fire

Two men were smoked out of their apartments Tuesday evening after a fire started in the laundry room of a two-story house.

Brian Heritage was home in his second-floor residence when the fire broke out. Some of his neighbors called 911; one of his neighbors called him.

“I ran upstairs; the phone was ringing,” Heritage said. “It was her, like, ‘Your house is on fire!’ “

Shortly thereafter, the first-floor tenant, Rich Hawk, returned to 1603 W. Shannon Ave. to see his neighbors encircling the smoking house, he said. Some of the neighbors helped Heritage try to put out the blaze with fire extinguishers.

But it was too much. Flames jumped out of the laundry room when he opened the back door, he said.

The Fire Department arrived about 5:45 p.m., and 27 firefighters had the blaze under control by 6:15. They cut holes in the roof and broke out all the windows for ventilation. And they recovered some of Heritage’s and Hawk’s essentials: their wallets and checkbooks.

But Heritage, while watching smoke pour out of his apartment, said he was worried about his computer and furniture. He is living on disability payments and had just landed on a two-year housing assistance plan.

“I’d just gotten my garden looking beautiful. Now I’ve got glass all over it,” Heritage said. “I’m just hoping I can move back in upstairs. I’m not letting go yet.”

Heritage had friends who were willing to let him stay with them Tuesday evening, and the American Red Cross responded to the fire to help Hawk. Hawk, a maintenance engineer who has lived at the house for four years, told Red Cross volunteers he would need housing and work clothes.

He said he was worried about his computer and his tools.

Neither of the tenants had renter’s insurance, said their landlord, Rod Barnett.

“I’m just glad everyone’s OK,” he said. “It’s an old house.”

The fire caused about $40,000 in damage, according to a Fire Department news release. The cause had not been determined late Tuesday.

Barnett said he had lived in both the apartments and a neighboring house – which he also owns – when he was a child. The house was built in the 1920s, and his father bought it in the mid-1940s, he said.

“This is a terrible thing to have happen to a place where you grew up,” he said.