SCARBOROUGH, Maine — A raging fire and dramatic rescue took place Wednesday morning near Eight Corners in Scarborough, and witnesses are crediting a passerby for helping an elderly woman out of her burning apartment.
Smoke from the fire could be seen from downtown Portland.
Witnesses say the fire was intense. Mike Libby was on his way to the high school when he saw the fire.
“There was flames shooting out the side of that garage like you wouldn’t believe,” he said. “And you could feel the heat from the road.”
Gloria Heatley, 84, was the only one home at the time of the fire.
She made it out as the fire spread to her apartment, but then broke a cardinal rule of fire safety going back inside.
“She went back in,” Heatley’s in-law and neighbor, Barbara Mackey, said. “I think she had something she wanted to grab. And she went back in and never came back out. So they found her on the floor.”
Witnesses say a man stopped, ran inside, and helped Heatley out. The family tells us she had broken her arm and a cut her head.
“There was a lady sitting down on the ground,” Libby said. “She had blood coming off of her face.”
Paramedics took Heatley to Maine Medical Center. The family expects her to recover. Heatley’s son used the garage for his landscaping business. He lost two trucks, tractors and other equipment.
“My son-in-law’s business is here,” Mackey said. “All his equipment; his tractors, trucks. So it’s a shocker.”
As firefighters doused a few hot spots, the deputy chief credited people reporting the fire right away, and his firefighters, for being able to knock this fire down quickly.
“For the amount of fire here when we got here, the crews did a real good job,” Deputy Scarborough Fire Chief Gary Sandler said. “And everything turned out well.”
Fire investigators were already on the scene trying to figure out how this fire started. There were some fuel jugs in the garage and fuel in the trucks and equipment.