Tomotla – Four families were displaced, including two individuals who were transported for hospital care, when fire destroyed an apartment four-flex at Meadowbrook Apartments on Tuesday afternoon.
The fire was reported at around 3 p.m. Tuesday at 831 Tomotla Road. Units from the Murphy and Valleytown fire departments responded, along with Cherokee County Emergency Medical Services, ambulances and the sheriff’s office.
One unidentified person, described by witnesses as a woman visiting her sister, was airlifted for advanced medical care after she jumped from a second-floor balcony to escape the blaze.
Eight-year-old Nathaniel Johnson, a Murphy Elementary School third-grader, was early in noticing smoke from the fire and yelled at the top of his lungs to alert residents to get out. He rushed in to rescue two cats his mother, Felisha Johnson, was fostering for the Valley River Humane Society and cut his arm in the process. The cats resisted his rescue attempt and ran back into the burning building.
“I yelled as loud as I could,” Nathaniel said. “I tried to rescue the kitten and the cat, but they ran back inside.”
“If it weren’t for him, we’d probably still be in there,” Nathaniel’s mother said, gesturing toward the burned-out remnants of the apartment building.
Felisha Johnson’s daughter, Sarah Hogan, 16, helped pull the woman who jumped from the second-floor balcony from shrubs beneath the balcony.
As of early reports, all residents escaped the building, and one dog was rescued from a ground-level unit.
Nile McCool, 18, is a game developer who lived in a ground-floor unit with his father and was asleep when he heard popping sounds and a fire alarm. He threw on shorts and a T-shirt, grabbed his headset and laptop computer, and fled the building. He was unable to find his dog, Powder. Distraught over his lost dog, he stood barefoot in the brush beneath the shade of trees, mourning the loss of his dog.
After controlling the blaze, firefighters entered the building looking for victims and survivors and found Powder alive and well. Volunteer firefighter Rob Graf kept careful watch over the dog until her owner could be found. McCool and Powder were on opposite sides of the parking lot, and it took some time before the two were reunited.
The building appeared to be a total loss. Cherokee County tax records list the building’s value at $588,200 and the owner as Meadowbrook Residence LLC of Fort Washington, Md.
- This is a developing incident. Check the Sept. 3 edition of the Cherokee Scout for additional and updated information.