PITTSBURGH — Fire tore through three homes along Merrimac Street in Mount Washington Friday morning. The damage is severe, but things could’ve been a lot worse if neighbors hadn’t immediately jumped in to help.
The community rushed to save their neighbors from their burning homes.
Mount Washington neighbor, Richard Brown said, “You don’t really think. It’s just like there’s people in there let’s get them out”
Richard Brown ran to 163 Merrimac Street right before 9 Friday morning after he saw thick black smoke.
Brown explained, “My instinct was like I need to go there because it looked like it was just starting and so like let me see if I can help out.”
A Pittsburgh Police Sergeant who just happened to be in the area, also saw the smoke and got there at the same time to find a man on the roof of his porch. You can see him in this doorbell camera footage from across the street.
Cara Cruz, a Pittsburgh Public Safety Official said, “He was trying to find a way to get him down when that gentleman told him. Look there’s someone else on the main floor.”
While other neighbors used their ladders to get that man down, the sergeant and Brown rushed to rescue the other man on the first floor.
“When you walk inside the entryway there’s a stairway up to the second floor which that entire doorway was on fire and his apartment was off to the right and he had no idea that anything was happening,” Brown said.
The two men were rushed out before the fire spread to the homes on each side of it.
Firefighters were able to knock the two-alarm blaze down within hours. Right now it’s unclear what sparked the fire. No one was seriously hurt, which is due in part to the quick action taken.
Brown said, “We just kind of both happened upon the situation but I think it speaks for the neighborhood of Mount Washington of like we just kind of stick together. Everybody’s just really good people.”
Six people are currently displaced. A firefighter had to be taken to the hospital for a hand injury and one cat died.
Pittsburgh Public Safety officials said the cause of the fire was determined to be electrical/accidental.
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