CENTERVILLE, Utah — Residents return to their homes after evacuating from a fire that killed one woman Wednesday night.
Officials say the woman was the only fatality, with the fire itself starting just after 7:45 p.m. at the Cedar Springs Condominiums near 88 West 50 South.
Dana Boren, who lives two doors down from where the fire happened, said she was walking her dog outside when she saw an orange glow from the middle unit in her building.
“I thought she put up decorations. So I got a little closer and I realized that’s not a decoration,” she said.
Not wasting any time, Boren grabbed a fire extinguisher before knocking on the doors of her building to let everyone know there was a fire.
“Within the thirty seconds of us finding the fire, the windows started to crack and hiss like a teapot. Then they just burst through,” said Boren. “So it’s surreal.”
Meanwhile, her husband was on the phone with 911. They were able to get everyone out of the building before the fire department arrived.
Melissa Wahlberg lives right next door to where this happened, she was working at the time when she received a call about the fire.
According to Wahlberg, her unit sustained plenty of damage.
"Water damage, smoke, the smell is horrendous, and the firefighters, I know that they're doing their job, but I've got two major holes in my ceiling," she said.
Both Wahlberg and Boren say the woman who was killed in the blaze lived in the unit for roughly over a year.
"It's really unfortunate, it's damaged and it's a life was lost," said Wahlberg.
It's an incident Boren says could have possibly been even worse.
"How bad the fire would have been before we saw it, or if we saw it, what if we came home and went to bed?" She said.
Wahlberg says she will be staying with family until her unit is fixed, Boren herself doesn’t know for how long her family will be displaced.
The fire is still under investigation, the name of the victim will also not be released at this time.
