Majestic Alley Residents Form Bucket Brigade to Contain Apartment Fire

Residents of the Majestic/Pink’s Alley area united yesterday to prevent a fire from causing major damage in their community. Around 5:15, flames broke out at an apartment occupied by 66-year-old Charles Perez. According to police, Perez was inside the lower flat of a two-story building when something exploded in his living room. Perez says he then saw fire and smoke coming from his sofa and began shouting for help. Fortunately, residents of the area were then able to join forces and form a bucket brigade, quickly extinguishing the fire before it could spread to other structures. Our newsroom was at the scene and spoke to Michael Francis a community activist from the area about the efforts. 

Michael Francis, Director, Hands and Hartz Group: “Basically it’s just small house fire ignited rapidly but to the good assistance of the community we managed to get it under control and out within perfect timing before it spread to the other apartments in the area. Well the house that it started in approximately five people reside there but as you can see that’s a long barracks so basically looking like sixteen families so it would have been a real devastation if it wasn’t out in time. As you know we have experienced fires multiple times and the other barracks have burned down a couple years ago and we were right there doing the same thing using buckets and breaking the pipes and everything to keep everything under control.”  

According to fire officials, the fire may have been the result of an electrical malfunction. The building did not receive any major destruction from the fire or water.