Chattanooga marks second fire death of year

A woman died Wednesday afternoon at Erlanger hospital after having been pulled by firefighters from a burning North Chattanooga home earlier that day.

An adult male was critically injured in the Houser Street blaze, and two of three children who escaped the home were treated for minor injuries. No identities had been released as of Wednesday evening.

photo Two adults were transported to Erlanger with critical injuries Wednesday when a fire broke out on Houser Street in North Chattanooga.
photo With flames shooting out the windows and roof, firefighters went inside the burning structure and pulled out two victims. Contributed photo by Bruce Garner.
photo Fire crews on the scene of a house fire on Houser Street in North Chattanooga.
Map

220 Houser St.

220 Houser St.

The fire death was Chattanooga's second of 2014 and of this week.

A Monday fire in Hixson left a woman dead.

"The flames came out of nowhere," neighbor B.J. Sanders said of Wednesday's fire.

Sanders stood in front of his house later in the afternoon, about a quarter-mile from the still-smoldering home at 220 Houser St. where fire broke out about 10:15 a.m.

Sanders' forearms and white T-shirt were still streaked with ash. That morning, as he sat on the porch with a friend, he noticed flames. They started running -- Sanders didn't even stop to put on shoes. They broke in a window of the burning home and saw a man inside. They tried to pull him out, Sanders said, but the man was too weak to help them.

"He fell back through the window, and he gave up," Sanders said.

Soon after, firefighters pulled out the man and a woman who also lived in the home. Emergency medical technicians took over and both were taken to Erlanger hospital, where they were treated for severe burns and smoke inhalation. The man later was flown to Vanderbilt Medical Center's burn unit in Nashville.

The woman's three elementary-school-age children were helped out of the house by neighbors and ran to their grandmother's house on nearby Van Dyke Street, said Bruce Garner, public information director for the Chattanooga Fire Department.

After firefighters located the children, they determined that two of them, ages 9 and 10, should be taken to T.C. Thompson Children's Hospital at Erlanger for treatment of minor burns and smoke inhalation.

Firefighters still don't know what caused the fire, but the home was a total loss, Garner said.

The same rescue crew battled both the Houser Street and the Hixson fires.

"It's been a rough week," Garner said.

The community around the Houser Street home is tight-knit. Neighbors gathered outside even after the fire had dwindled.

Sanders' daughters go to school with the three children who were pulled out of the home Wednesday morning. He went to school with their mother, and their grandmother lives next to Sanders' mother, just around the corner.

As he waited to hear word on the man's condition, he shuffled his feet, looking down at his orange socks. He wondered what he could have done differently. Maybe if he had stopped to put on shoes, something would have changed.

"We did everything we could until we couldn't breathe anymore," Sanders said.

Still, he said, it will haunt him.

"I'm gonna dwell on it for a while, I'm sure," Sanders said.

Contact staff writer Claire Wiseman at cwiseman@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6347. Follow her on Twitter @clairelwiseman.

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