Elyria home is uninhabitable after fire, but no one is hurt

ELYRIA — Briana Coughlin awoke around 3:25 p.m. Sunday to the smell of smoke in her home at 913 Foster Ave.

Coughlin said the smoke was coming into her second-floor bedroom and the two-floor home was pitch black as she ran down the stairs. Coughlin, 23, said flames were about two-feet high in front of the front door so she ran out the back door.

“Oh my God, my bedroom is gone (and) everything up there,” Coughlin said as she stood outside the smoking home looking up at firefighters moving the mattress in her bedroom.

Coughlin said the fire was coming from an extension cord by the front door that was plugged into an electrical power strip near the television.

“I was going to grab some water, but by the time I got out and I turned around to come back in, I saw the flames,” she said. “I said, ‘I’m getting out of here.’ ”

No one was hurt in the fire, which firefighters contained at 3:37 p.m. and extinguished at 3:44 p.m., according to fire Capt. Carl Mack. The house, which Mack said is uninhabitable, sustained about $20,000 in damage with about $7,000 in damage to personal belongings.

Mack said Coughlin and the other two residents of the home are being provided with temporary housing assistance by the American Red Cross Lorain County chapter.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation Sunday night.

Contact Evan Goodenow at 329-7129 or egoodenow@chroniclet.com.