COLUMBUS — A disposed cigarette is the suspected cause of a fire that critically injured two people on Columbus’ Near East Side Sunday, forcing the pair to jump from a second-floor window to escape the flames, fire officials said.
The 911 dispatch center received a call around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 27, about a fire at 1070 E. Fulton St., said Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief Brian Barnhart. Dispatchers reported people trapped on the second floor and a back porch of the two-and-a-half-story duplex. Columbus Division of Fire Lt. Nick Davis said two people jumped from an upper window of the house, which has two stories and an attic.
Both were transported in critical condition to Ohio State University Medical Center, Barnhart said. Firefighters searched the building twice and contained the fire shortly before 1 p.m., after the exterior of the structure was charred.
Davis later shared a video from a porch security camera with The Columbus Dispatch that fire officials believe shows the suspected cause: smoke emanating from a pole bin receptacle for ash and cigarette butts on the front porch.
Sunday’s fire was the city’s second fire resulting in critical injuries in as many days. On Saturday, Sept. 26, two people were injured — one critically — in a North Side fire reported around 4 p.m. in the 7700 block of Kiowa Way, west of Worthington Galena Road. That cause remains under investigation.