KINGSTON, Jamaica— Residents of Cooreville Garden in St Andrew prevented what could have been a major fire in one of the apartment units on Sunday evening, with a female occupant narrowly escaping serious injuries after being trapped inside.

A male resident shared with Observer Online that he smelled smoke coming from next door sometime after 8 pm, which prompted him to raise an alarm.

“It’s like the smoke went across the window — when you look across, you’re not seeing any smoke from the other side. When you look at the light, you can see smoke, and then we looked down and saw the window there, so we saw black smoke coming out,” he recounted.

“So me take the broom and lick the bathroom window to try alert her. Me can’t hear her. So me assume say something a burn and she not dead,” he continued, adding “When we come down the stairs and check the grill, the grill open. It strange, ’cause she no normally leave her grill open. So we go so and say, ‘make we kick off the door’. The door hot, so you no want kick it and it buss on you. But it couldn’t even kick off, ’cause things inna the way.”

It was at this moment the Jamaica Fire Brigade and police arrived at the scene, and firefighters breached the door and rescued the female who was then taken by cops to seek medical attention.

Firefighters subsequently extinguished the blaze which was contained to one apartment.

The cause of the fire was unknown up to publication time.

(Video: Llewellyn Wynter)