Fire Damages Duplex

Fire damaged a duplex on East Ridge Drive, Saturday afternoon.

According to East Ridge Fire Department officials, the fire at 4170 East Ridge Drive was in a two-story duplex and it was reported that people were still inside the burning structure. Chief Mike Williams said that three bystanders had removed one person from the duplex minutes before emergency personnel arrived.

A second alarm was raised and Catoosa County, Red Bank, Tri-Community and Ft. Oglethorpe Fire Departments responded.

Two people were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation, officials said. One of those people was reportedly in critical condition. In addition, a firefighter received second-degree burns to his face. The firefighter was treated and released, officials said.

“Today, I would like to say thank you to the three young men for being true heroes,” Chief Williams wrote on the ERFD Facebook page.

Chief Williams also thanked the fire departments that responded to the mutual aid call for its assistance.

Photo by Frank Pate

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.