Published: October 29, 2008 11:02 pm      

No one hurt in apartment fire

As her tears began to fall, Debbie Burse asked “What am I going to do now?”

Burse stood watching as Dalton firefighters extinguished the few remaining smoldering areas of an apartment building on Maddox Chapel Road Wednesday night.

“My thoughts were ‘God help me,’” Burse said, recalling the moment she realized her apartment was on fire.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said. “We’re going to be homeless for a while.”

The apartment complex, at 2800 Maddox Chapel Road just off Underwood Street, caught fire at approximately 6:30 p.m., according to Dalton Police spokesman Bruce Frazier. No one was injured.

“They haven’t begun to investigate the cause,” Frazier said.

The apartment had eight units but two were unoccupied, he said. Most of the fire damage was in the upstairs units.

"The first floor had mainly smoke damage," Frazier said.

Burse, who lived in an upstairs apartment, was outside when she smelled smoke coming from the building. She went back inside her apartment to save a few photos of her children and grandchildren.

Susan Green, who lives in a downstairs apartment, returned from running errands to see her building in flames with smoke billowing from the roof.

“I ran in the house to get some pictures. I saved a lot of them,” Green said. “I was going back to get clothes but (a family member) got me out. Smoke was coming in my bedroom.”

Kacie Perry was at her parents house when her roommate called her to say their apartment was on fire. She said her first thought was she hoped her four cats and a rocking chair were OK.

All four of the catswere saved.

The American Red Cross is available to help the families who are displaced.



Staff writer Kim Sloan contributed to this story.