Troy apartment fire halts highway traffic

A late Wednesday night call kept Troy firefighters working long into Thursday afternoon as they extinguished a fire that destroyed the Pine Tree Plaza apartment complex.

A fire hose crossing U.S. Highway 2 blocked traffic for four hours in front of the building located at 106 W. Missoula Ave.

Erin Tallmadge said she was the first person on the scene.

“I was walking out of Town Pump after work, and I saw flames,” Tallmadge, 21, said. “My sister lives there, so I called 911 and ran over with my friend.”

Tallmadge and her friend, Nikki Taylor, 22, approached the building, but the flames were too great to enter.

“We took a ladder from a neighbor’s house and started getting people out,” Tallmadge said. “I can’t stop thinking about all those people screaming for help.”

One of those people was Tallmadge’s sister, Ashley. Awaking beside her boyfriend, Eric Howe, Ashley Tallmadge immediately looked for the couple’s three-year-old son, Jaxson.

“I opened the bedroom door and my son was surrounded by flames,” Ashley Tallmadge said. “The couch he was sleeping on was on fire, but he was knocking on our door. I can’t understand how he made it.”

Howe, a former firefighter, gathered his son and girlfriend with him near their front door. He had Tallmadge open the door and quickly huddle under him, along with his son, to protect them from the flames.

“He was burned on his head and his back,” Tallmadge said. “He was completely naked and thankfully he was or else his clothes would have probably caught on fire. By the time he was out, his hair was orange and he only had the watch on his wrist.”

Howe was sent to the University of Utah Burn Center in Salt Lake City.

While Tallmadge was not sure, she thinks the fire started on the Christmas tree in her apartment.

“The building smelled like a hair dryer all day,” Tallmadge said. “But in an apartment building you think someone may have just burned a pizza.”

Libby Red Cross Disaster Action Team responded to the scene. Program Manager David Kunzelman said his team was working to provide food, clothing and shelter to the displaced. Around him, a team of volunteers shuffled through Troy Community Baptist Church. Former tenants at the complex were fed breakfast at the church. The group was originally sent to the Holiday Motel but moved again after a power outage affected both the motel and the complex. Power went out at 2 a.m. and was restored around 11 a.m.

Through it all, Troy Police Chief Bob McLeod stood across the street from the complex and directed traffic after it opened back up around 4:30 a.m. when firefighters began using porta-tanks instead of fire hydrants.

“It’s been 12 hours,” a beleaguered McLeod said. In front of him, firefighters pulled the tin roof off of the still-smoking building.

There was no official word on how many people lived in the apartment complex or how many others required medical attention. Troy Volunteer Fire Department Chief Larry Chapel said he would not be able to comment on the situation until the fire was out.

Sitting in the Baptist Church hours after the ordeal, Ashley Tallmadge said she has lost everything.

“These clothes I’m wearing are my mothers,” Tallmadge said. Her 2004 Chrysler Sebring melted in the flames. She remembers seeing her cat catch fire as she ran out of the building. A puppy was also lost.

“That was just the worst experience of my life,” she said. “People have already begun donating Christmas gifts for my son, This community does an incredible job responding to situations like this.”