By Ben Winslow and Brandy A. Lee
Deseret Morning News (Salt Lake City)
Copyright 2006 The Deseret News Publishing Co.
ROY, Utah — Children stood on the top-floor balcony, screaming and crying for help as black, billowing smoke and hot, orange flames poured out of an apartment building Friday.
Down below, Shaun McQuirk and Alex Martin climbed up the outside balconies to reach them, forming a human ladder to rescue the children and a woman trapped by the fire that had already consumed the stairwell and was burning the apartments.
“The kids on the third-floor balcony were screaming, saying they couldn’t get out and didn’t know what to do,” said Martin, who lives in one of the ground level apartments at 5525 S. 2785 West.
Roy firefighters said a two-alarm fire destroyed the six-plex in a complex of other apartment buildings. It started in the upper hallway and quickly spread to a nearby apartment. Investigators were going through the rubble on Friday, trying to determine the cause. Firefighters said it did not appear suspicious, and no one was injured.
Around 11 a.m., McQuirk saw the flames from his back yard in a nearby complex. He jumped his fence, ran through the parking lot and climbed up the outside balconies. With the help of Martin, McQuirk, Sherelle Hamblin and others, they brought the woman and children down to safety.
“We made a human ladder. We really had to coax the kids down. They were screaming and they were crying,” Hamblin said.
A neighbor snapped photos of the rescue, later provided to the Deseret Morning News.
“I grabbed ‘em by the arm and waist to bring ‘em down,” McQuirk said as he watched firefighters put out the apartment fire. “I’m not a hero. I’m OK.”
Sarita Chavez was inside her family’s top floor apartment watching television with her 8-year-old brother, Isaac, when she smelled smoke. Looking into the hall, the 17-year-old girl saw the fire and grabbed her brother’s hand to escape.
“It was really dark and thick,” she said. “We got to the last floor, and he fell. I had to stop and pick him up.”
Surrounded by anxious family members outside the burned-out building, Chavez said she was having trouble breathing. Firefighters said that amazingly, no one was injured in the fire.
“A cringe went down my back when I heard there was a multistory fire with people trapped,” said Roy Fire Chief Jon Ritchie. Firefighters were able to quickly extinguish the blaze using a new ladder truck purchased just two months ago.
Firefighters used the ladder truck to reach over a row of condominiums across from the burning building to battle the fire from above. Firefighters from Roy, Ogden, Riverdale, Clinton and the Weber Fire District responded to the fire.
By the time it was out, the ground-level apartments were flooded with three feet of water and the rest were blackened and torched.
Francisco Chavez lost everything. His apartment has a gaping, blackened hole where the ceiling was. The windows were smashed by the fire, and throughout the afternoon, pieces of the frame fell.
“The most important thing is that my children are fine,” he said. “I don’t know what we’re going to do now that we’ve lost everything.”
Matt Chase’s little Chihuahua puppy, Buster, was rescued by a neighbor, who broke into his apartment to grab the tiny dog. Chase stood with his wife near a Red Cross table, with the trembling dog on a leash.
“It’s good that he’s all right,” Chase said, tears welling in his eyes. “But that’s my whole life in there. Now everything’s gone.”
His apartment sustained smoke and water damage. The couple, who have only been married a week, did not have renter’s insurance or even know it was available to them. The American Red Cross of Northern Utah said it will place some of the displaced families in area hotels through the weekend. Others will stay with relatives.