ROANOKE, VA – “I see the cloud, and I prayed to the Lord to take care of the person that is having the problem, and when I got here, I found our house on fire,” Jose Velez-Figueroa said.
Velez-Figueroa has lived in this home on Courtland Road, along with his friends, for over a decade.
He says he stepped out for coffee Thursday morning and came back to find the house in flames.
“The first thing I could think was Matthew, Michael and April, who were inside the house,” he said.
Velez-Figueroa tells 10 News those initial moments were stressful because he didn’t know if they had made it out safely.
“They wouldn’t let me go no more than that fire truck. I was worried about Matthew. Nobody knows, nobody tells me nothing about anybody,” he said.
Crews pulled three people from the home, with one person transported to the hospital for smoke inhalation. That person has since been released.
“Oh I feel very grateful,” Velez-Figueroa said.
But Chief David Hoback says for the fire crews inside, the fight was just beginning.
“We went into fire attack mode on the basement where the fire was. During that process, we encountered conditions that resulted in a fire fighter mayday, which means one of our firefighters was in serious trouble,” Hoback said.
All of the firefighters made it out, but one was left in critical condition, with three more in serious condition.
“This is one we haven’t had in a long time. It’s very concerning to us, any time you have a fire fighter that’s injured. So we’re just going to make sure he’s taken care of. He’s conscious and talking, he’s doing well, but he’s got pretty significant burns that he’s got to recover from,” Hoback said.
For Velez- Figueroa, the attention now turns to picking up the pieces.
“I know everybody’s okay. The house, that’s material. God will provide,” he said.