DETROIT (WXYZ) — Four animals were killed and a woman narrowly escaped a house fire on the city's west side early Wednesday morning.
Fire crews say they received a call about a house fire around 7:30 a.m. They say when they got to the scene near Pasadena and Wildemere, a house near the corner was engulfed in flames.
The homeowner, Harold Long, says he had just left the home minutes before receiving a call from his girlfriend, who was in the house, about a fire breaking out.
"I just left to wash some coats for work and getting ready to go to work. I turn around and come back and I pulled up and my whole house was in flames," said Long.
A cell phone video taken by a neighbor shows large flames shooting out of three front windows.
Before Long made it back to the home, several neighbors were already pouring into the street after they say they heard a loud boom and screams.
"I’m still sleeping so I hear the kids screaming 'Daddy! Daddy! Something going on.' I look out the window and the house across the street happened to be on fire," said neighbor Cedric Grant.
Grant says he ran across the street to find a woman trapped inside the home, screaming from the upstairs window. Grant says, as thick smoke billowed into the air, he told the woman to jump and he would catch her.
"She took a chance and I caught her," said Grant. "I feel real good this morning. Thank God for that. I’m happy I was able to help in any way."
While the woman made it out with minor injuries, four dogs who remained trapped upstairs died in the fire.
"I was hoping she was okay. All I was thinking was did she get out? Did the dogs get out? She made it out but they didn’t," said a tearful Long.
Long says in addition to losing his animals, some of which have been with him for nearly a decade, he also lost family keepsakes.
"I just lost my stepfather yesterday. We were dealing with the funeral. I got stuff in there that we needed to go through. I had my mom's ashes in there. Just everything gone," said Long. " The worst thing is my dogs, they were family. The rest of the stuff I couldn’t care less about."
The American Red Cross is helping to place Long and his partner in temporary housing for the next few weeks. The fire department says the home is uninhabitable.
