Monday, Oct. 29, 2007

‘There’s people inside’

Newspaper carrier discovered fire, called 911, tried to help victims

The first thing Tim Burns saw was the smoke. A lot of it.

“It was a pretty big column of smoke — bigger than anything from anyone just having a fire there,” he said. “So I went to investigate.”

Burns was on his normal Sunday morning route, delivering papers for The Sun News. He was one of the first people to arrive at a beach-house fire on Scotland Street in Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., that killed six USC students, one Clemson student and injured six others, all college students.

Burns was the first person to call 911. Then he tried to do everything he could to help.

“I got down there and three or four of them were out, running around the house, yelling ‘Where’s my brother? Where’s my sister?’” he said. “I asked if there was anyone inside, and they were yelling, ‘There’s people inside! There’s people inside!’”

A canal runs behind the house, and Burns said one student had to jump into the water to escape the fire. Another girl who was in the same room did not make it out, he said.

Burns said he went into a stairwell to try to save the girl, but it was so hot he could not get near the door. He turned back when windows started blowing out above him.

Back outside, Burns said he urged another student to jump from a second-story window. He landed on a car and was fine, Burns said.

“I saw a hand coming out of one of the windows,” he said. “I told the guy to jump. He didn’t want to, but he wound up hanging off the ledge and then letting go.

Some residents living near the beach house also said they called 911. Others woke up to the sirens of emergency vehicles.

“All I could think about was the California fires,” said Blannie Watson, whose home stands across a canal from the fire. She said she saw ashes falling and that her kitchen began to glow orange.

Soon, a police officer came to her house and told her to evacuate. A piece of ash fell on the officer and burned part of his uniform.

Watson said she watched parts of the burned home smolder for the rest of the day. She said they saw one of the burned bodies near the window, and saw authorities place a blue tarp over an area where she said the seventh body was found.

“This is the worst fire that Ocean Isle Beach has ever had,’’ said Judy Horne, who lives on the same street as Watson and has lived in the town for 15 years.

Watson said several homes, including a house full of college students from the University of North Carolina, were evacuated because the wind was blowing debris. She said the UNC students had just met the students in the Scotland Street house the night before.

Burns, the newspaper carrier, did his best to try and calm the students who had escaped from the burning house. Emergency vehicles arrived quickly, he said, but the fire was already raging by the time they got there.

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt so helpless because I knew there were people in there,’’ Burns said. “Everything races through your mind, and I’m sure I’m going to replay it several times.”

Cherney and Rodriguez are reporters for The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News, a McClatchy newspaper.

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