It was a grueling morning for Atlanta firefighters as they raced across the city battling back-to-back fires that left two people dead and several others looking for a place to stay less than two weeks before Christmas.
The first blaze broke out shortly after midnight Wednesday at the Terraces at Highbury Court on Mount Zion Road in southwest Atlanta’s Glenrose Heights neighborhood. Assistant fire Chief Greg Gray told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution it was a small fire on the first floor of a building.
No one was injured, but nine people needed help getting out of two units on the second floor, he said.
As firefighters worked to extinguish that blaze, a larger fire broke out nearly 10 miles north in Midtown, Gray said. Crews arrived on State Street around 2:45 a.m., within four minutes of the 911 call being made, and found heavy fire coming from the front of a home. It is located just a few blocks from Georgia Tech’s campus, but students did not live there, Gray said.
One person had already escaped by jumping from an elevated window on the main floor and sustained an ankle injury, officials said. That person was found lying in the backyard and let firefighters know that six others were still inside.
Three of those victims could walk and needed only minor assistance getting out, Gray said. Three others had to be rescued. One of them was brought out through the front door, another through the basement and the third through a window.
Two of the rescued victims were unconscious and in critical condition with severe burns, Gray said. They did not survive. The third, who sustained injuries during the fire, was taken to Grady Memorial Hospital.
Gray said it took 13 fire units with 50 firefighters to get the blaze under control. At least four of those units had already been working the Mount Zion fire, he added, and two of them went on to fight a third fire a couple of hours later in southeast Atlanta.
That one was reported closer to 5 a.m. nearly seven miles away at a home on Sawtell Avenue in the Lakewood Heights neighborhood. It was brought under control quickly, and no injuries were reported as the home was vacant, Gray said.
“We’re prepared to handle these types of incidents — the multiple incidents — but it is very taxing on the command staff, as well as especially the firefighters, the boots on the ground,” Gray said.
Some of the firefighters left the firehouse around 12:30 a.m. and battled all three blazes before making it back, Gray underscored.
“But you know, you can talk to any member in Atlanta Fire and Rescue, and they’ll tell you that that’s the kind of day that they love, is to be able to come to work and respond to calls and try to make a difference in the community,” he said. “Every one of them will tell you, ‘That’s what we’re paid to do. That’s what we love to do. That’s the passion that we have for the job.’ So you won’t hear anybody complaining.”
The Mount Zion Road fire isn’t the first to be reported at the Terraces at Highbury Court apartments, which is among 272 of the metro area’s persistently dangerous complexes, according to an investigation by the AJC that looked into serious crimes, lax maintenance and other hazards in Atlanta neighborhoods.
In January, a fire destroyed one of the three-story buildings. It was not clear if anyone had to be rescued, but no one was injured. Eleven months later, the cause of that fire remains under investigation, fire department spokesperson Alyssa Richardson said.
Several other incidents have been reported at the complex, including the shooting death of a man in October 2022. Another man was hurt in a shooting a month earlier, and a third was shot a month before that. From 2017 to 2021, there were 108 crimes there, including another homicide in 2019, 24 aggravated assaults, seven robberies, a rape and one case of sodomy.
Wednesday’s fires all remain under investigation, officials said. The Red Cross confirmed it is assisting the victims.
— Please return to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution for updates.
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