May 24, 2013
Debbie Tramell says she used to live here…
But that's before they turned it into a boarding house for men.
"They used to take in women that wanted to change their lives around get them off of drugs and all this other stuff and then they got into a financial situation and had to close down and they turned it into a boarding house. It's for when somebody's trying to find a place to stay and they charge so much for the room."
Neighbors called the police after they saw the house on Ussery street go up in flames around 11:35 this morning.
"The fire was involved upon our arrival, heavy smoke showing on arrival from both floors and from two sides of the structure, which means it had quite a bit of a head start on us when we got here."
Etheridge says this is an older home and that means it's harder for firefighters to contain the flames.
But he says he's just thankful nobody's been hurt.
"Our first priority is to make sure that there is no one inside the home, which we did very quickly, to make sure there are no injuries to the occupants or to the owners, then bring the fire under control, and then we'll start the investigation phase of identifying who lives here, who owns this structure and what caused this fire. So we're happy to report no injuries at this point. However, it's very dangerous what they're doing behind me so I hope we continue to operate safely until we bring this fully under control."
Officials say they hope to have answers as to what caused the blaze soon.
