North Macon apartment fire forces residents into the cold

People fled their warm apartments into the sub-freezing cold early Tuesday during a fire at the Whispering Woods apartments at 4411 Northside Drive.

About 7:20 a.m., two children were inside unit 15-F when the fire started in the heating system, but they got out safely, said Sgt. Ben Gleaton, a fire investigator with the Macon-Bibb County Fire Department.

John Thomas, who lives a few units down in the row of two-story apartments, said his wife had already taken their oldest daughter to school when he heard the sirens and then someone banging on his door.

"It was chaotic because we were in the middle of getting ready to go to school, and the cat was panicking and the dog and everybody was like 'What's going on?'" Thomas said. "Thank God everything was OK."

Thomas' family and pets took shelter in their car as firefighters put out the blaze. Their tabby cat was bundled up in his daughter's jacket.

A few other residents were temporarily displaced by the blaze, which was contained to unit 15-F, Gleaton said.

"It started downstairs in the HVAC closet and ran into the wall and to the attic," he said. "It just started getting in the attic before we cut it off. If it had gotten into the attic, it would have been a mess."

This story was originally published January 19, 2016 at 5:29 PM with the headline "North Macon apartment fire forces residents into the cold ."