New Haven Independent

Now it’s the 74-year-old retired telephone worker’s turn to need some help from family.

Skinner (at left in photo) said she left her apartment at the St. Martin Townhouses at 200 Goffe St. at 3 p.m. Sunday. She had just finished cooking dinner for her 99-year-old mom. (Mom turns 100 on June 8.) Skinner cooks for her mother, who’s disabled, every day. Every day she brings the food to the apartment of her sister Marion, who also lives in the St. Martin Townhouses; Marion brings the meals to mom.

“I just stepped out for a minute. I didn’t have anything lit up,” Skinner maintained.

But when she returned to her $490-a-month, three-room, one-bedroom apartment at 3:15 p.m., she said, “I saw my refrigerator on fire.” She wanted to go inside to check it out.

By that time firefighters had arrived on the scene. They told Skinner to stay outside, for her own safety.

Twenty-five firefighters in all, from five units, showed up. It took just one minute to extinguish the one-alarm fire. No one was hurt.

It took 10 more minutes to “knock it down” — and, fortunately, prevent it from spreading through the ceiling to the apartment upstairs, said Capt. William Gould (at right in photo), acting West Battalion chief.

Gould said the fire apparently started on the stove. It “rolled over” across the ceiling. Click on the play arrow to watch him survey the damage and describe the fire’s potential to destroy more than just Paula Skinner’s apartment.

The firefighters’ quick work was appreciated by the family of Janequa Williams. She and her 3-month-old daughter live upstairs from Paula Skinner.

Williams’ mother Sonya (pictured), who lives on Tilton Street, watched nervously with other family members as firefighters finished up the job, and as Janequa made her way to the scene from work.

Sonya was watching her granddaughter off-site at the time of the fire.

Capt. Gould estimated that Paula Skinner won’t be able to return to her apartment for a week.

But she won’t have to travel far: her sister Marion will be putting her up just steps away in apartment #16.