Smoke Prompts Scare at Northwest D.C. Apartment Building

Burning debris in a hallway filled a Northwest Washington apartment building with smoke Thursday morning and panicked residents, prompting some to dangle their legs from windows as if to jump before firefighters evacuated them on ladders and extinguished the blaze, a fire department spokesman said.

The arson fire broke out shortly before 7 a.m. in a third-floor hallway of the five-story building in the 5600 block of 13th Street NW, and the upper floors were quickly enveloped in smoke, spokesman Pete Piringer said. When firefighters arrived, "there were probably 15 or 16 people leaning and hanging out of windows getting ready to jump," he said. "One family had already put some sheets together and were getting ready to climb down."

Piringer said more than a dozen residents were helped from the building on ladders. No one jumped or climbed down alone, he said. Two adults and two children suffering from smoke inhalation were taken to hospitals. Piringer said one was in serious condition, a woman in her 20s whose preexisting medical condition was aggravated by the smoke.

He said an unknown culprit set fire a pile of debris that included an old mattress.