BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. — Four people, including a firefighter, were taken to a hospital after a fire at a senior living apartment building.
The fire broke out on the eighth floor of the Bridgeville Towers on Bank Street around 4:25 a.m.
Bridgeville Volunteer Fire Department Deputy Chief Ron Baselj said some residents had to be rescued, while others were evacuated. Residents on lower floors were instructed to shelter in place.
Baselj said it being a senior home care facility made the process of getting people evacuated more challenging.
“As we are trying to go up, we had residents coming down. We were trying to secure and help them and evacuate them as safely as possible,” Baselj said.
Raymond Jester, who lives on the eighth floor where the fire started, said he escaped safely before going back inside to help others.
“I got my cat, my dog — two cats — out. We ran out and then I went back in to get an older woman who can’t even walk and helped her down the steps,” Jester said. “It took me almost a half hour to get her down.”
Jester also said he saw a neighbor who suffered serious burns in the fire.
“I’m just sad that the woman got burnt on her hands, her face — her whole face got burnt,” he said.
Jester said he is among the residents who cannot return to their units and is unsure where he will go next.
“It’s always a false alarm — 95% of the time it’s something small,” he said. “But this is the first time we’ve had a fire like this in nine years.”
The conditions of those taken to the hospital are currently unknown.
Baselj said it’s too early to know the exact cause of the fire.
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