TUCSON, Arizona — An elderly man is dead after a fire destroyed several units at the Metro Tucson apartment complex near Stone Avenue and Roger Road early Saturday morning.
The Tucson Fire Department received the call just before 3 a.m. Saturday and had over 30 firefighters on the scene.
News 4 Tucson's cameras were rolling as firefighters got the blaze under control.
On Sunday morning, overlooking the charred apartment units, News 4 Tucson spoke with Christian Montgomery who lives only a few doors down from ground zero.
"Me and my girlfriend were just laying in our bed and we heard someone yelling for help," Montgomery explained.
He believes that a desperate call for help came from the man who didn't make it out alive.
He said once he saw the fire, it was out of control and little he could do.
"I wish I could have helped him but by the time I got out it was already beyond anybody's control," he said.
Montgomery described the intensity of the flames and said the upper floor collapsed into the apartment below where the man was killed.
He watched as several other neighbors escaped, such as a woman and her young children and a man with a dog.
"One of the guys who lived here had to hop off the balcony, he realized he didn't get his dog so he climbed back up, went in, and had to throw his dog to somebody down here," he explained.
He said it took about 15 minutes from when he saw the flames before firefighters arrived, once they were on scene he said they put out the fire very quickly. As first responders moved in, he said he jumped in to lend a helping hand.
"One of the guys got their hoses caught on something over here and I just went like hero mode and picked it up and helped them carry it and stuff, I was in flip flops," he said.
It was a terrifying experience he doesn't want to relive, he quickly grabbed some belongings and threw them out front of his apartment just in case the flames tore through his unit. His apartment luckily was not damaged.
The Red Cross is now assisting the residents who were displaced.
The Tucson Fire Department says one person was sent to a hospital for evaluation and several others were treated on scene.
They have not yet identified the victim but multiple neighbors tell us that the man was in a wheelchair. TFD has not determined the cause of the fire.
UP TO SPEED