WEBSTER, Texas – An 11-year-old boy is alive and safe after he broke a window to escape a fire at an apartment complex in southeast Houston, the Houston Fire Department said.
Officials said two firefighters were also hospitalized after the fire that happened at 696 Pineloch around 6:30 a.m. However, none of the injuries is believed to be serious.
Khy’air McWherter said he woke up after smelling what he thought was a candle. The 11-year-old said when he opened the door he saw flames coming from the corner of his home.
“Then I broke through the window and someone came to help me get out of there,” Khy’air said. “I couldn’t go through the door.”
Charles Harper had just pulled in to a near-by gas station when he saw the fire. Harper immediately ran to the complex to start alerting residents.
“(I) started beating on doors, nobody was answering and at the last apartment there was boy that busted the window out and got my attention and ran over there and pulled him out,” said Harper.
The early morning fire caught many residents off-guard. Andrew Priest said he was asleep when the fire started.
“I was woken up by the fire department, they had busted into my house and telling me there was a fire,” Priest said. “When I walked out of the closet it was just engulfed in smoke and the whole apartment; really scary.”
Red Cross workers are helping those displaced by the fire. Gracy Lane said her apartment was heavily damaged by water.
“Everything is black it’s so sodded, and everything is just ashy and it smells horrible. The first five minutes I showed up I couldn’t even breathe when I was in the house,” said Lane.
Lane said she is able to move into a vacant unit in the same apartment complex. HFD officials have not yet determined a cause of this fire.