By Abe Winter
Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska)
Copyright 2007 The Omaha World-Herald Company
OMAHA, Neb. — Crews responding to a fire early this morning heard a woman’s screams when they went to the back of the burning house.
“It was hard to see because it was dark and smoky,” said Battalion Chief Mark Ervin. “There was so much smoke that you couldn’t see her, but we heard her yelling through the window from the outside.”
The woman, leaning out of a second-story window, was holding her infant.
Firefighters rescued the woman and her child from the house at 2583 Pinkney St. Another woman and a man were rescued after they went through a second-floor window onto the roof of the front porch.
Fire crews were called to the house at 4:18 a.m. today. When they arrived, Ervin said, smoke was pouring from the front and back of the upper floor.
Flames also were shooting out windows of the kitchen, on the lower level, where the fire is believed to have started.
The fire spread through the second floor into the attic, Ervin said. The upper level of the house had smoke and fire damage.
Ervin commended the firefighters for their quick work in extinguishing the fire and rescuing those trapped inside.
“It’s our job,” he said, “but it’s satisfying knowing that we did what we’re trained to do.”
He said none of the four occupants of the house was seriously injured, but the mother and her child probably would be kept at Creighton University Medical Center for observation.
Assistant Fire Chief Jack York said an investigation determined that the fire was accidental, caused by something burning on the stove that resulted in grease catching fire. Damage estimates were $20,000 to the house and $10,000 to its contents.