Residents Jump From 3-Story Building To Escape Raging Duplex Fire In O.C.
NEWPORT BEACH (CBSLA.com) — Four women and a man Tuesday made split-second decisions to jump from a three-story building to escape a fast-moving fire in Orange County.
Cellphone video captured crackling flames shooting from the duplex on Newport Beach's Balboa Peninsula. The raging fire broke out in a second-story unit in the 300 block of 34th Street about 4:15 a.m., trapping several residents.
Abby Pearose, one victim, said: "I woke up to screams by multiple individuals and glass breaking."
Two of the four residents who jumped were hospitalized with serious injuries and broken bones.
"I realized how serious the situation was, and I think that if I had woken up 10 minutes later, maybe I wouldn't be here telling the story," Skylar Hoey, 22, told CBS2's Michele Gile.
Due to the ferocity of the fire, Hoey says she couldn't use the staircase.
Instead, she says, she ran up to the roof and made the leap from one building to the next.
"I just thought about my mom and how I just wanted to live so I just jumped," Hoey said. "It was like a spur-of-the-moment decision. It was like life or death."
But before Hoey made her escape, she encouraged a woman who was up on the roof with her to jump across the 6-foot gap to the rooftop next door. They were 20 feet from the ground.
Firefighters said it appears a Christmas tree is to blame.
"When a Christmas tree burns, as you well know, it gets going so fast and so hot that it easily can cut off your escape so their escape led them to having to jump. That was their best option," Newport Beach Fire Department Battalion Chief Jeff Boyles said.
The fire was declared a knock down at 5:16 a.m.
