Fire Damages Garage Apartment

Fire damaged a loft apartment over a two-car garage on Fountain Avenue, late Monday evening.

According to officials, East Ridge firefighters were called to 3746 Fountain Avenue at 11:52 p.m. When firefighters arrived, heavy smoke was coming from the second floor of the building. Firefighters made an interior attack and quickly knocked the fire out. The occupants of the loft apartment, a man and his dog, escaped the fire without injury.

Fire Chief Mike Williams said the cause of the fire was accidental and appears to be electrical in nature. Chief Williams said that off-duty firefighters were called in to provide extra manpower to “overhaul” the fire scene. Overhaul, Williams said, is tearing out wall board and insulation to insure that there are no smoldering spots in the structure that could reignite the fire.

Officials said the the garage and the loft apartment were built within the last several years.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.