OREM, Utah — A house fire in Orem left one person dead on Friday.
Brad Simmons (@bradsoop) is an independent photographer and has been chasing fires for a couple of years now.
He said Friday seemed like just an average morning.
“This was just 10:30 in the morning. I got the notification. I skipped putting socks on, and I just got over to the fire as fast as I could,” he said.
As he pulled up to the Orem home, it did not look like anything out of the ordinary.
“Immediately, I saw plumes of smoke as I drove up. But as I got there, they had put it out for the most part,” Simmons said.
However, something heartbreaking caught his eye.
“They had three ladders. A cop in the middle put a ladder on the hood of the car, and he helped pull the guy out of the window,” Simmons said.
According to Orem Fire, an older man was the only person in the home when the fire started.
WATCH: 4 dead after West Jordan house fire; Police suspect arson by one of the deceased
While no neighbors FOX 13 News spoke to wanted to go on camera, they described seeing the man calling for help out the window, and Simmons captured the moment he needed to be rescued.
“A lot of fires are not that big of a deal, but to see that happen and see him get pulled out,” Simmons said, "yeah, it's intense. It's the first time I've seen someone getting dragged out, first time that there's been a victim getting loaded up in the ambulance.”
According to Orem Fire officials, the man died due to smoke inhalation.
“Very intense feeling for everybody out there. It was pretty heartbreaking to hear what happened this morning,” Simmons said.
Simmons has been to many fires and said they impact the community in different ways.
“I do find that at fires, it's the first time neighbors are outside together in who knows how long,” he said. "There is definitely kind of a community coming together, and then in this case, there's a community mourning together.”
While they’re heartbreaking to see, Simmons hopes his photos do some good in situations like these.
“It does show that these guys are heroes, and that they're saving people, and hopefully the people that saw my photos, if the family needs help with anything, we can all be able to reach out in a bigger group because of how many people have seen what I took,” he said.
Neighbors told FOX 13 that the victim was a very nice man who always handed out bananas in his neighborhood.
Orem Fire did not have any new information Saturday and said the cause of the fire remains under investigation.
