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(CBS) BROOKLYN In Brooklyn, a late Monday morning fire that went to two alarms had an elderly woman trapped in her small home by her own possessions that were crammed inside.
It was at 10:44 a.m. that the fire department got the call after a passing patrol car from the 60th precinct spotted smoke and drove to the scene. An evacuation was already underway.
The fire was at 2552 West 15th Street near Avenue Z. The tiny home was belching smoke and flames. Before police officers spotted the blaze, a cleaning lady at a house next door to the one on fire had already yelled outside for neighbors to help.
The first to repond was Anglea Sabato. She was visiting friends next door to the fire. She knew that inside the bungalow was 73 year-old Blanch Pessola, and her dog.
Sabato says she heard the cleaning lady yell about the smoke, saying, "The girl came out and said it was just black, black smoke. And we went downstairs (in the basement), and we couldn't see her. She was yelling for help. We couldn't see her. Then my uncle came and helped us and we got her out."
Pessola, who was rescued along with her dog, suffered smoke inhalation, as did two of Angela Sabato's aunts from the house next door. A brick house on the other side of the blazing bungalow suffered damage from flames lapping up its side.
Fire Chief John Hilton of Batallion 43 says 13 firefighters suffered various injuries, adding, "We had a large body of fire when we arrived. It appears it started in the basement in a sofa."
A major problem in the bungalow was its overstuffed condition that firefighters call a "Collier's mansion," named for two elderly hermit brothers who, in 1947, were discovered to be such pack rats emergency people could hardly get into their Harlem brownstone.
Firefighters were on the scene for more than two hours, emptying the small home of it piles of possessions, most of which ended up in a pile in front of the small home.
It caused passersby to wonder how so much stuff could have been inside such a small house.
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