GLEN BURNIE, Md. — Anne Arundel County firefighters responded to an apartment fire tonight that left one person dead.
It was just before eight o’clock Sunday night when someone at the Chesapeake Glen apartment complex heard a alarm going off, felt heat coming from a neighbor’s door and dialed 911.
Nickhelle Colbert’s grandmother lives in the building.
“I was on the phone with her as the incident was going down,” said Colbert, “Such an unfortunate situation. From what she was telling me, he was a very kind man who kind of like stayed to himself, but because of the holidays, it’s a very unfortunate situation.”
While it would only take 15 minutes for firefighters to douse the flame, their rescue would prove to be in vain.
“They located the victim just inside the front door,” said Capt. Charles Fowler of the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, “The victim was removed to the outside where they began to work on him, and he was pronounced deceased shortly thereafter.”
Investigators say the fire happened on the top floor of the apartment complex, but was contained in that single apartment.
The unidentified victim, believe to be in his fifties, lived alone according to neighbors, and investigators are still looking into the cause of the fire, which cost the man his life, while others scrambled to safety.
“It could have went up and the whole building could have went into flames,” said Colbert, “but I just thank God for everyone’s safety and the fire department and the police coming as fast as they could.”
