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One dead, four injured in fire in Northwest D.C. apartment

Several people were taken to the hospital after a fire Thursday morning at Claridge Towers, a 10-story apartment building in Northwest Washington.

By Omari Daniels, Olivia Diaz | 2024-03-28

Fire and emergency services respond to a fire in a 10-story apartment building on Thursday. (Omari Daniels/The Washington Post)

One person was killed and four others, including a firefighter, were taken to a hospital on Thursday after a fire erupted on the eighth floor of a downtown D.C. apartment building that houses mostly senior citizens, authorities said.

Firefighters were dispatched at 8:35 a.m. to Claridge Towers at 1222 M St. NW, according to D.C. Fire officials. Assistant Fire Chief Andre Edwards said a resident whose body was found on the floor of the burning unit on the eighth floor had died of injuries suffered in the fire. Officials did not identify the victim. The cause of the blaze is under investigation.

Edwards said the firefighter was at the hospital and "doing fine." He did not say how long the firefighter had been with the department.

Edwards said there were about 233 occupied units in the 10-story building. The apartment building was also a community dining site, said an official with the D.C. Department of Aging and Community Living. The DACL official said that residents displaced by the fire would receive temporary housing, but officials did not say how many people would have to leave their homes.

Firefighters evacuated the building's top three floors, including the level where the fire occurred, Edwards said. Officials said they were working to help evacuated residents get in touch with their families, saying some people left their cellphones behind when they left their units.

About 10 to 15 residents stood outside the apartment building around 9:30 a.m. waiting to be let back in. Futsum Teferi, who lives on the fifth floor, said he was watching television at 8:30 a.m. when he heard the fire alarm.

"I smelled the smoke and looked out the window and saw everyone evacuating," Teferi, 65, said. He said he has lived in the building since 2021 and that the alarms have been an occasional problem and will often go off momentarily before stopping.

Another resident, Carmen Brunson, said she heard the alarm after 8 a.m. and looked out her third-floor apartment to see residents evacuating. Brunson, who said she has lived in the apartment for over 15 years, said she immediately got dressed and left just as management was knocking on the doors of other residents.

"I was definitely nervous," Brunson, 56, said. "I left the apartment and just saw a lot of smoke."

Brunson said she grew increasingly frustrated with officials telling residents to move further down M Street away from the building and said she hopes that she and others will be able to reenter soon.


This article was downloaded by calibre from https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/03/28/dc-fire-apartment-seniors/


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