Firefighters pull man from raging Macon house fire

As flames and smoke gushed from a house on Montpelier Avenue Friday afternoon, firefighters pulled a man from the blaze.

Relatives said the man’s name is Eddie Jacobs, in his mid-60s, and that he lived there in the one-story house at 2511 Montpelier with his sister.

A report on Jacobs’ condition wasn’t immediately available, but Macon-Bibb County Fire Chief Marvin Riggins at the scene described his injuries as “critical.”

“He took a lot of smoke and a lot of heat in there for a good few minutes,” Riggins said. “From the last that I was told ... he did have a pulse” when Jacobs was taken away by ambulance.

Anita Dent, who said Jacobs is her uncle, pulled up as firefighters were trying to douse the fire, which broke out sometime after 4:30 p.m.

Dent said Jacobs’ sister had gone away for the week to visit a daughter in Atlanta and that Jacobs was staying there alone in what Dent described as “a longtime family home.”

Dent and her husband had been checking on Jacobs in recent days. Earlier on Friday, Dent said her husband had taken Jacobs to run an errand. She said that when her husband dropped Jacobs off, Jacobs said he was going in “to fix me something to eat and take a nap.”

The 1,600-square-foot house, built in 1936, sits just east of Pio Nono Avenue near the old Miller High School.

Its owner, Leola Nixon, once worked as an elementary school custodian. Seventeen years ago, when volunteers from the Christmas in April home-repair charity fixed up her house — painting and reinforcing her ceiling — she told The Telegraph that it was as if Santa Claus had come.

“You could say he came down the chimney when they got here this morning,” Nixon, who was 52 at the time, said. “It’s a blessing. I’m glad they’re here.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2017 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Firefighters pull man from raging Macon house fire."