Thomas MacMillan Photo
When a family member started a grease fire Tuesday while making tortillas, Rolando Torres found himself trapped in his Hill apartment with smoke pouring through the house.
Firefighters showed up to the rescue shortly after the fire sprang up at 2:50 p.m. Tuesday at 260 Howard Ave. in the Hill.
They entered the front door, climbed to the third floor and brought Torres to safety. No one was injured in the fire.
Torres, who’s 48, said he was asleep at the time of the blaze. He woke up because a fire alarm went off. He saw smoke all around him. He was afraid to walk through the thick smoke, so he stuck his head out the window.
Within five minutes, firefighters showed up and helped him down the stairs and out the front door, he said. About an hour after his rescue, he was asked how he felt.
“Good, because I’m alive,” he said with a chuckle.
Chief Michael Grant (pictured) said the two-alarm fire drew about 42 firefighters to the scene. The blaze caused “considerable damage” to the second floor, he said. The fire spread to the “cockloft” between the third floor ceiling and the roof, he said.
Aaron Badillo, who lives with Torres in the second-floor apartment, said the fire broke out while he was cooking in the kitchen.
Badillo, a 33-year-old unemployed Mexican immigrant, joined a crowd around 3:30 p.m. watching a half dozen firefighters on the white house’s mansard roof, swinging axes and sledgehammers and pointing a hose at the last small flames that were still visible on the eave of the building.
Firefighters punched holes in the roof to vent the fire, and threw debris down to the ground below. They later used chainsaws to cut through the eave and access the front window on the left side of the house.
Badillo said he was cooking tortillas in his second-floor kitchen just before 3 p.m. when a grease fire started. He immediately left the house along with other family members. He rents an apartment with five other adults and his two nephews. Four of the adults were home at the time. They didn’t have time to grab anything. He said they didn’t know where they’re going to sleep tonight and they didn’t have anything except the clothes they’re wearing, he said. He said the building is insured.
Badillo was one of 12 people displaced by the fire, including four children, according to Fire Marshal Joe Cappucci. The marshal said the American Red Cross was on its way to help the displaced tenants.
The group includes Jessica Vega, who lives on the first floor.
Vega was about to pick up her 5- and 10-year-old children from the school bus stop when an upstairs neighbor knocked on her door on the house’s first floor around 2:50 p.m. An upstairs kitchen was on fire, the neighbor said: You need to clear out.
Forty minutes later, she was standing amid the crowd outside the house.
“I’m upset. I’m mad. I’m real upset,” remarked Vega, huddled with her arms wrapped inside an oversized black jacket and looking at all the water streaming into her apartment.
By 4 p.m., firefighters were packing up oxygen tanks and beginning to clear away from the scene of the doused fire.
Firefighters used a portable “Command Post” to keep track of deployed personnel.
Nice job to the men and women of the FD helping this man to safety. Keep your chins up from the attacks by many of the commenters on these boards. Those with a half a brain in their head know the invaluable service you all provide. Well Done!