Helmet cameras on South Lake Tahoe firefighters were rolling as crews respond to a deadly apartment fire on Pine Boulevard Monday.
“I knew it was serious. The smoke was getting intense so quick that I knew I had to get out pretty quick,” resident Don McMillian said. It was a scene that the property manager Shawn Mand and McMillian said was intense.
“I did kick down the door but, as soon as I did that, a huge wall of smoke came out,” Mand said.
“It was very traumatic and hectic when a great deal of smoke started rising up through my floor,” McMillian said.
The Monday morning blaze killed one person as six others were rescued and another escaped on his own from the first floor.
“It was immediately noticed that we had victims out the windows behind me and that an immediate rescue was needed,” Captain Tyler Jack, South Lake Tahoe Fire Rescue, said.