About 70 people are displaced from their homes following a fire in Prince George’s County Tuesday.
More than 20 units were destroyed in the 1900 block of Rochelle Avenue in District Heights, Md.
Cpl. Ricky Adey and Lt. Scott Finn of the Prince George’s County Police Department saw and smelled the fire before 8 p.m., News4's Jackie Bensen reported.
"As we came into the parking lot, I drove my car around the back, behind the building, and then I could see at that point the building on the backside, the first two floors had a lot of smoke and flames coming off," Finn said.
Their efforts to save residents of the building prevented them from getting to a trapped dog in time.
"At that point we were assisting and alerting other people inside the building who weren't even aware yet that the place was on fire," Finn said. "There were no bells, no sirens, no anything, really, at that point. There was a full-size dog and a puppy that were out there, and the flames at that point were reaching the area where they were at. They kept moving further and further away from the flames until they had nowhere else to go."
One of those dogs died, but Adey and Finn are credited with saving the lives of seven people, Bensen reported.
Firefighters needed about an hour to knock down the blaze, News4’s Shomari Stone reported.
