By the time firefighters arrived at the burning row house in the 4800 block of Pimlico Road, neighbors, like Steve Diggs, had already evacuated from their homes.
VIDEO: Scene footage of the fire
“I heard a bang on my door about five, maybe five thirty in the morning,” said Diggs. “People was knocking on everybody’s door trying to make sure everybody got out of the house, everybody was safe, and when I stepped out, it was engulfed. It was engulfed. The whole first floor.”
VIDEO: Seven people displaced in Pimlico fire
Diggs captured a video on his phone of the inferno and tried to help his neighbor, who had narrowly escaped from the home where the fire started.
“When he came out of his room, there was so much smoke; by him growing up and living in that house, he knew how to make it to the steps. Got down to a lower floor. There wasn’t so much smoke, and he made his way to the door,” Diggs told us.
According to the city’s housing crisis team, there were two people from the home where the fire originated who have now been displaced, along with five others who lived next door.
Paramedics treated the man who barely made it out of his burning home for smoke inhalation, but it appears he lost almost everything, and his house has now been condemned.
“I had to go in the house and get him some clothes and stuff to wear, because he came out with almost nothing on,” said Diggs, “just his life.”
