Durango – An early morning kitchen fire in a third-floor unit destroyed 10 condominiums today at Whispering Pines, 12 miles north of Durango.
A expectant father returning home from the hospital in the middle of the night to grab some clothes saw the flames and began yelling “fire” around 3:40 a.m. He awoke several residents of a neighboring building who began pounding on doors to warn residents.
Everyone escaped without injury, except one firefighter dislocated a finger. Twenty units were evacuated. Some families went to the American Red Cross shelter at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.
The complex, built in the 1970s, had low water pressure and no sprinkler system, which hampered firefighters’ efforts, sheriff’s spokesman Dan Bender said. The firefighters were mopping up the last hot spots by 9:30 a.m. today. The cause of the fire is under investigation, but Bender said a man apparently fell asleep with food cooking. He awoke to a smoke-filled room and called authorities.
Whispering Pine resident Alison Woody was among the men who raised the alarm and saved lives, county spokeswoman Danni Lorrigan said. The fire batallion chief called him a hero.
Woody, was up late drawing in his small studio, when he heard his neighbor yelling. He hustled his wife, three children and kitten to safety in their van, and then he began knocking on doors.
“We did our best,” Woody said.
Woody and others also helped firefighters wrangle hoses and extinguish small new fires spread to other buildings by the wind. He then passed out breakfast burritos, made by his wife, to all the firefighters.
Butch Knowlton, manager of the La Plata County Emergency Management Office, also had received a report of a fatal fire near tiny Arboles, but additional information was not available from the Los Pinos Fire Protection District as of midday.
