Apartment Fire

East Ridge firefighters battle a blaze at an apartment complex for the second time in 6 months.

Fire on dorroh lane this morning required east ridge firefighters to call in extra help.

It's the second fire at the complex in less than six months.

News 12's kenan scott spoke to east ridge firefighters about the extent of the damage.

The east ridge fire department received a call just after 7:30 this morning about a reported apartment fire on dorroh lane.

Upon arrival, east ridge fire chief mike williams says that fire crews quickly evacuated all surrounding apartments to ensure that nobody was left inside.

"we started evacuation of all the apartments, made sure all the occupants were out.

Once that was determined we had fire crews basically simultaneously start to fight the fire.

The reporting party or reporting call comes from apartment 22 and right now it looks like the fire did start around apartment 24."

But the flames were tough to beat.

Williams says that when firefighters arrived, they quickly called in to chattanooga and catoosa county fire departments for extra manpower.

"we called for chattanooga, catoosa.

Chattanooga sent an engine and a ladder, catoosa sent a ladder and an engine.

We also have mutual aid coverage in our station right now from the community in rossville.

It appears right now we have about twelve apartments with fire and water damage.

Looking at about fourteen occupants who were displaced."

Neighbors weren't comfortable with speaking on camera, but say that they woke up to the smell of smoke, and could see it billowing from the roof.

The say that it's the second fire the community has seen in less than six months, with a previous fire in july that damaged ten different units.

East ridge fire department has told me that one person is being treated with smoke inhalation, although they were released at the scene and did not have to be transported to the hospital, saying that their symptoms were only minor.

Reporting in east