Paul Bass Photos
Firefighters prepare to enter 200 Fountain St. apartment.
Firefighter Taurese Washington escorts Carol Wilkerson to safety.
A larger-than-usual contingent of firefighters responded to a one-alarm call on Fountain Street, to ensure elderly tenants didn’t get stuck in a dangerous spot.
That happened Sunday evening at the six-story, 62-unit apartment complex at 200 Fountain St.
A call came in at 6:48 p.m. about smoke filling a first-floor apartment. By the time firefighters showed up, it had become a one-alarm fire.
The department dispatched crews on five engines, three trucks, a rescue emergency unit, and two chief officers, more than usual for such a call, because of concern about the safety of many of the residents who may need help getting out, said Battalion Chief Miguel Rosado, the supervisor at the scene.
Building manager Gary Sessions, at left, arrives on scene.
The complex has largely housed older tenants in the past. More of a mixed group is represented among the 110 tenants currently living there, though plenty of seniors remain among them, according to building manager Gary Sessions, who rushed to the scene of the fire.
Battalion Chief Miguel Rosado, center, at command site.
Firefighters had the fire under control quickly enough that it didn’t spread to other units. No one was injured, according to Rosado. By 9 p.m. worried tenants, who had gathered in the courtyard and driveways outside the building, were allowed back into their apartments.
Angela Manolakos: Safely outside, just in time.
Except for Angela Manolakos, who lives in the apartment where the fire occurred. The Red Cross was arranging to find her temporary lodging.
Manolakos, who moved here from New York six months ago for a job as an on-site operating-room support specialist at Yale New Haven Hospital, was shaken as she stood outside the building.
She was grateful, too. Grateful that her daughter, who lives with her, happened to be in New York Sunday. And grateful that she had managed to get out safely with her two longtime canine companions.
Firefighter at work inside Manolakos’s apartment.
Earlier, Manolakos was mopping the kitchen floor when the fire alarm went off. She discovered “white smoke billowing out from the wall” near the washer and dryer area of her two-bedroom apartment on the first floor of 200 Fountain.
“That’s weird,” she thought.
The alarm went off again. Now “huge clouds of thick white smoke were coming out” of the wall.
As smoke began filling the apartment, Manolakos worried a fire would ignite and she would have trouble breathing. She called 911, then dashed outside with Zoe, her 11-year-old chihuahua, and Jazz, her 11-year-old Pomeranian. From the complex’s inner courtyard, she watched as flames burst out from one of the windows of her apartment, and the smoke turned black.
She had gotten out just in time.
Lifelong New Havener Estelle Herman, center, with aide CeCe Bai, right, and daughter Michele Brownstein.
One floor directly above Manolakos’s apartment, CeCe Bai had arrived for her nighttime shift as one of 102-year-old Estelle Herman’s round-the-clock home health aides.
She smelled smoke. A firefighter knocked on the door and called out that there was a fire.
Bai didn’t know how she would get Herman out of the building by herself. She called Herman’s daughter, Michele Brownstein, who lives in Milford. Her mother hadn’t been out of the apartment in two years, Brownstein said. She worried about how her mom would get out — and she worried about Bai: “I know CeCe would never leave” Herman.
Brownstein called 911. Meanwhile, Bai found a firefighter nearby and asked for help. She got Herman into a wheelchair. The firefighters started the elevator; when the fire alarm goes off, the elevators stop, and only the firefighters can start them up to shepherd people out if possible.
They helped Bai move Herman out of the building, much to Bai’s and Herman’s daughter’s relief. Herman, a New Havener her entire century-plus existence, seemed no worse for the wear. They all were grateful for the help of the firefighters.
As was Donya Wilkerson, who lives with three family members, including mom Carol Wilkerson, on the fifth floor of 200 Fountain. Donya smelled smoke, then saw the firefighters in the hallway. She told them she couldn’t get her wheelchair-bound mom out on her own. Two firefighters took over and brought her down to safety.
Mekhi Parker, Vanessa Parker, Jamaar Carroll: Keeping cool, checking on neighbors.
While tenants watched the firefighters working and wondered if they could return to their homes Sunday night, Vanessa Parker and her family were taking the situation in stride.
She said she had remained calm when she was braiding her son Jamaar’s hair and looked out her second-floor balcony to see “big clouds of smoke.”
“We’ve got to go,” she announced mid-braid to Jamaar and to Mehki Parker.
First, though, they pulled an alarm and checked on elderly neighbors to make sure everyone was getting out. Then they high-tailed it down the stairs.
If she had to end up at “a b&b with a pool” for a short stay, said Vanessa, who runs a graphic design studio, she wouldn’t complain. She could roll with whatever came her way.
Battalion Chief Rosado said inspectors were present at the scene working on determining the cause of the fire.