Local
Hartford fire leaves 12 residents displaced after one tenant sleeps through evacuation
A fire at a Hartford apartment building sent three people off a second-floor balcony and displaced 12 residents. A 22-year-old tenant said he woke hours later to smoke and emergency vehicles; police and fire officials are investigating how he was missed during the evacuation.
A fire in a lower-level apartment on Evergreen Drive in Hartford, Wisconsin, early Saturday displaced 12 residents and sent three people trapped on a second-floor balcony jumping to safety, officials said. Police officers caught the three as they came down, and all residents and 10 pets got out alive.
Fire crews arrived shortly before 1 a.m. after reports of a blaze in a bedroom. Dispatch communications indicated thick black smoke had spread through the hallway and into other apartments, preventing officers from reaching the people on the balcony.
One resident, 22-year-old Lincoln Mountjoy, said he slept through the emergency. He woke around 3:20 a.m., about two and a half hours after the fire began, and noticed squad cars outside and the smell of smoke.
Mountjoy said he called a neighbor, who asked whether he was still inside the building. He told the neighbor he could smell smoke but had not realized he was breathing it in.
One person suffered minor injuries and declined hospital care. Hartford police and fire officials are investigating how Mountjoy was not found during the evacuation. The cause of the fire was not reported.
The fire upended a home Mountjoy said he had lived in for about two and a half years. “You get your own apartment finally,” he said, describing the shock of an emergency he had not expected.