Residents of a Northwest D.C. apartment building are recovering after a fire broke out on the fourth floor Sunday morning and left two people hurt.
D.C. Fire and EMS spokesperson Vito Maggiolo said units were called just before 9 a.m. to an apartment in the 1600 block of Park Rd NW after a fire broke out in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors.
D.C. Fire said one woman who made her way to the front of the building was badly burned and had to be transported to the hospital. She suffered life threatening injuries.
A man was also taken to the hospital but he’s expected to be OK. No other injuries were reported.
When they arrived, Maggiolo said firefighters could see smoke pouring from the five-story building, and saw several residents in the windows clearly in distress.
Crews rescued some of those occupants using ladders as they worked to put out the fire, which engulfed an entire apartment unit on the fourth floor.
The flames in the stairwell between the third and fourth floors prevented some residents from exiting.
The fire was put out by 10:35 a.m. and crews worked for several hours after that to ventilate smoke from the building.
There’s no word on how many residents could be displaced by the fire or the extent of the damage.
