Five People Displaced in Apartment Fire

No Injuries Reported

Fire damaged a small apartment building, Wednesday night.

Firefighters were dispatched to 14 Laurel Lane at 10:23 p.m. on a reported apartment fire, according to an East Ridge Fire Department press release. When crews arrived, they reported heavy fire on the exterior of the two-story building extending from the basement to the roof.

As firefighters quickly searched for people inside the structure and determined the building was empty, others were busy extinguishing the blaze.

East Ridge Fire Chief Mike Williams said no injuries were reported in the incident. The cause of the fire appears to have been an electrical short in the power service entering the building.

Chief Williams said the Red Cross was notified to assist the five occupants displaced by the fire.

Tri-State Mutual Aid was requested for firefighter rehabilitation at the scene. Chattanooga’s Ladder 13 and Catoosa’s Engine 7 were called in to stand by at ERFD Station 1 to cover any other calls for service.

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.