Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 8, 1994 TAG: 9405080120
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The first fire, which occurred shortly after 5 p.m., caught everyone, including Clifford Watkins, by surprise. Watkins said he and his girlfriend, Sandra Pratt, were playing cards when his son smelled smoke.
"I opened our door and looked down the stairs and all I could see was smoke."
Watkins said he and Pratt wrapped his son and Pratt's two grandchildren in wet blankets and ran downstairs and out the door.
"But then we thought, `Oh no, what about Hogan?' "
Watkins and a few others ran back into the house, pushed opened Ken Hogan's door, found him sleeping in front of the television set, and helped him outside.
Meanwhile, Gladys Terrell was waiting, hoping her brother, Walter Campbell, was not inside. Watkins and several others said they tried to get into Campbell's first-floor apartment, but the smoke was too thick.
Campbell walked up a few minutes later. He said he was sitting on a porch on Elm Street when he saw fire engines heading toward his block.
District Chief Phillip Taylor said the fire started in two rooms of Campbell's apartment at the rear of the building.
Campbell said he did not know how the fire started. "When I leave, I make sure everything is off, and when I smoke, I put the butts out in the kitchen sink."
None of the residents was injured, but several young kittens died in the fire.
Hogan, draped in a wool blanket and smoking a cigarette, later stood in the drizzle and watched firefighters douse the front hall of the building, which was a private residence before being converted into apartments.
Hogan, a six-year resident,protested, "I'm 72 . . . I'm too old for this."
None of the residents was in the building when the second fire began to damage the other half of the back side of the house about 9 p.m.
Chief Taylor said he's not sure how the first or second fire began.
by CNB