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Jan 5, 2009 5:47 pm US/Central
Deaths Confirmed In Paris Homeless Shelter Fire
PARIS, Texas (CBS 11 News/AP) ―
Five men were killed when a fire ripped through a small-town homeless shelter in Northeast Texas early Monday morning, fire officials said.
Paris Fire Chief Ronnie Grooms said an alarm sounded at about 3 a.m. at the shelter near downtown. The fire burned for three or four hours, Grooms said. A firewall confined damage to the southern part of the one-story structure, which had a second floor built into it where people slept. That second floor was lost in the fire.
Monday afternoon fire crews were still sifting through the charred section of the shelter and Edward Morgan was still waiting for word on his friend. The 55-year-old Paris-native was one of 26 people inside the shelter when the fire broke out. The bodies of five of those men were found upstairs.
"It was just engulfed man," said Morgan. "Big ole black, thick smoke and red fire was all up in the air, inside of there."
Several men who were in the shelter run by the nonprofit Seed Sowers Christians in Action said they woke up to see a large fire burning on a table where donated clothes were stacked high before they were to be sorted Monday.
"It went fast," said Roger Riemer, 49, who lived at the shelter since September. "There was quite a few people trying to get it out, but it didn't work. It was just getting too hot. Smoke was billowing out of there so bad. There was nothing we could do."
Riemer said he awoke to three loud pops, and then grabbed a fire extinguisher. He said several other men ran to the kitchen to get pans full of water to throw on the fire. Efforts to fight the fire only lasted about 10 minutes because the heat and smoke quickly became unbearable, he said.
Carlton Moore, 41, said he was filling up a pan full of water, but the smoke was so thick he couldn't even see the sink. He then crawled out of the building.
"The smoke got intense real quick," he said. "All I could see was smoke."
Fire investigators call the fire the worst they've seen in 30 years.
"There were people in there trying to put the fire out and trying to rescue people that they could get out on their own," said Dale Maberry with the Paris Fire Department. "They actually made a real valiant effort of getting everybody out of the building, prior to anybody calling 911."
Don Walker, who founded the shelter, said, "Everyone one of 'em just wanted to help me. You know, they're homeless people but they wanted to do something. And the community, this is a wonderful community. This community helped me as much as they could. I just don't know what to say, man. It's horrible. This is the most horrible thing that ever happened in my life."
Grooms said the fire started in a storeroom, but officials don't know the cause yet.
The group recycles cardboard and newspapers at the site to pay for the shelter and soup kitchen.
"We're just in shock over the men dying that way," said Lee Jordan, the wife of Rev. Billy Jordan, a retired preacher who serves on the group's board of directors.
She said the building is a converted bakery. She said her husband's organization took it over about 10 years ago and made it a shelter for homeless men.
There were 26 men at the 42-bed shelter -- where men stayed in 10-by-10 rooms -- when the fire broke out, Mayberry said. Another 20 people were sheltered at the First United Methodist Church of Paris.
Walker said that they'd had fire drills at the shelter, and Jordan said she'd never heard of any problems there.
According to the group's Web site, Seed Sowers Christians in Action relies on contributions to provide services to the homeless and low-income people. The shelter provides meals five days a week, according to the site. The group also has a smaller shelter for women and children at a different location.
On its 2007 tax filing, the group stated that the bulk of its income that year -- nearly $50,000 -- came from recycling. It also reported receiving about $41,000 in donations. The group said it recycles paper products, rags, plastic, aluminum and unused shoes.
Walker said he doesn't have insurance and they survive on the money raised from recycling and donations.
Paris is city of 25,000 people, located about 100 miles northeast of Dallas.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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