RESIDENT HELPED ALERT NEIGHBORS

JACKSON -- Lynda Cunningham awoke earlier than usual Thursday morning, a stroke of good fortune for 10 people in the Jackson apartment building destroyed by fire Thursday.

"I was just sitting there a little before 6 when I started hearing some commotion next door like someone might be tearing the place up," Cunningham said.

Cunningham called the landlord to warn him something might be happening. When her friend, George Swoboda, stepped into the hall, smoke billowed into the apartment.

"George said grab the baby and get out. It's a fire," Cunningham recalled.

Still on the phone with the landlord, Cunningham told him about the fire, hung up and called 911.

By then she could hear popping and cracking and glass breaking.

Carrying her 15-month-old grandson, she went door-to-door in the apartment building yelling, banging and kicking in hopes of waking her neighbors.

The 100-year-old, two-story brick building had been divided into six apartments: three upstairs and three down. One downstairs apartment was vacant.

The fire started on the second floor where smoke was thick when Cunningham started waking neighbors. But smoke and flames hadn't yet reached the ground floor.

"Everyone was sound asleep," she said. "I didn't want any harm to come to them. It was just an impulse to try to help everyone get out."

The building is owned by Walter and Wanda Wright. After receiving Cunningham's call, they telephoned other residents of the building to warn them about the fire.

Cunningham awoke Lisa and Delmar Smothers at the same time the Wrights telephoned the alarm. The Smothers lived in a downstairs apartment.

"Thank God for Lynda," she said. "There was no smoke in our apartment yet when she came to the door."

Her husband scooped up their 6-month-old son, and Lisa Smothers grabbed a small lockbox and a videotape with her son's ultrasound and scenes of her mother, who died last month.

"I didn't even have a blanket for the baby," she said.

But neighbors came to their aid offering blankets and shelter and a place to escape the ordeal for a few moments.

"This is why we moved to Jackson," she said. "It's such a wonderful community."

"I was sound asleep when someone started banging on my door," recalled John Ream, who lived in a downstairs apartment. His girlfriend had left for work about 20 minutes earlier.

"I couldn't imagine what was going on," he said. "There was Lynda telling me it was a fire. All I did was grab the dog and run."

Flames were shooting out of the roof and the heat shattered windows.

Swoboda woke Jose Aguille, Guadalupe and Herberto Mejia, who lived in the other upstairs apartment. The three speak little English and have no family locally.

Swoboda banged on the apartment door where James Pack lived. He never came to the door. Pack was killed in the fire.

Each apartment had smoke detectors, which started to sound as the residents were leaving and firefighters arrived.

The hours of the morning passed like a blur for tenants who watched dozens of firefighters and fire investigators at work.

Firefighters chucked smoking sofas and charred bits of wood from windows.

Landlord Walter Wright stood with them. "I'd say Lynda is a hero," he said. "It could have been a lot worse."

Later in the day apartment tenants had a chance to reclaim a few belongings. Lisa Smothers was pleased that firefighters had rescued her marriage license from the water. "They saw it and pulled it out. It was drying in the fire truck," she said. "I guess firefighters are sentimental too."

Cunningham shrugged off the praise that kept following her Thursday. Almost nothing remained in her apartment.

"I watched all my stuff go up in flames," Cunningham said. "All my personal belongings, my clothes, my shoes, my jewelry.

"I wish now I would have gotten my purse. You know, I keep everything in my purse," she said. "But at the time I was much more concerned about people's lives than things.