'My son was surrounded by flames'

TROY — People screamed for help as occupants desperately fled from a burning apartment complex in Troy early Thursday morning.

The Pine Tree Plaza apartment building was destroyed by the fire that closed part of U.S. 2 most of the day during firefighting efforts.

Erin Tallmadge said she was the first person on the scene.

“I was walking out of Town Pump after work, and I saw flames,” Tallmadge, 21, said. “My sister lives there, so I called 911 and ran over with my friend.”

Tallmadge and her friend, Nikki Taylor, 22, approached the building, but the flames were too great to enter.

“We took a ladder from a neighbor’s house and started getting people out,” Tallmadge said. “I can’t stop thinking about all those people screaming for help.”

One of those people was Tallmadge’s sister, Ashley. Waking up beside her boyfriend, Eric Howe, Ashley immediately looked for the couple’s 3-year-old son, Jaxson.

“I opened the bedroom door and my son was surrounded by flames,” Ashley Tallmadge said. “The couch he was sleeping on was on fire, but he was knocking on our door. I can’t understand how he made it.”

Howe, a former firefighter, gathered his son and girlfriend with him near their front door. He had Ashley open the door and quickly huddle under him, along with his son, to protect them from the flames.

“He was burned on his head and his back,” Tallmadge said. “He was completely naked and thankfully he was or else his clothes would have probably caught on fire. By the time he was out, his hair was orange and he only had the watch on his wrist.”

Howe was sent to the University of Utah Burn Center for treatment of his burns.

While Ashley Tallmadge was not sure, she thinks the fire started on the Christmas tree in her apartment.

“The building smelled like a hair dryer all day,” Tallmadge said. “But in an apartment building you think someone may have just burned a pizza.”

Troy firefighters worked well into Thursday afternoon on the fire.

A fire hose crossing U.S. 2 blocked traffic for four hours in front of the building at 106 W. Missoula Ave.

There was no official word on how many people lived in the apartment complex or how many others required medical attention.

The Libby Red Cross Disaster Action Team responded to the scene. Program Manager David Kunzelman said his team was working to provide food, clothing and shelter for displaced residents. Around him, a team of volunteers shuffled through Troy Community Baptist Church. Former tenants at the complex were fed breakfast at the church. The group originally was sent to the Holiday Motel but moved again after a power outage that affected both the motel and the complex. Power went out at 2 a.m. and was restored around 11 a.m.

Through it all, Troy Police Chief Bob McLeod stood across the street from the complex and directed traffic.

“It’s been 12 hours,” a beleaguered McLeod said in front of the still-smoking building Thursday afternoon.

Sitting in the Baptist Church hours after the ordeal, Ashley Tallmadge said she lost everything.

“These clothes I’m wearing are my mother’s,” Tallmadge said. Her 2004 Chrysler Sebring melted in the flames. She remembers seeing her cat catch fire as she ran out of the building. A puppy also was lost.

“People have already begun donating Christmas gifts for my son,” she said.