Fire destroys Pine Valley apartment building in Wrens

Some 26 Wrens residents were left homeless after a fire broke out in a Pine Valley Apartments Friday evening, June 20.

Marcus Scott, a tenant of apartment F5 for the past two months, said that he had put some chicken in the oven to cook and had stepped out on the patio to talk to a group of friends when he smelled smoke.

“There were five of us out there and none of us heard any fire alarm,” Scott said. “I had just turned it on. It hadn’t been in there five minutes, but when I walked back in the whole kitchen was engulfed.”

Scott said he tried to throw flour on the fire on the stove, but it did not help.

"I called one of my guys to bring me a fire extinguisher. It skeeted but then didn’t work. So I grabbed a couple of things and then we ran out and kicked in every door we could to warn the neighbors,” he said.

Robert Hannah said he was with Scott when they smelled the smoke and discovered the fire.

He joined Scott going door to door to warn the neighbors.

“That’s my friend’s place and she has a newborn child,” Hannah said Thursday night pointing to an adjoining apartment as fire fighters continued to douse the building. “She wasn’t there but I wanted to save some of her stuff and her baby’s stuff. We got what we could out then we came to this door, F1, but the fire had already moved down.”

Scott and his mother, Geraldine Davis, both residents of F3, said they had had trouble with the stove since they moved in. Davis said that the fire alarm in the kitchen had gone off two days before, but they had not seen any smoke or cause for it to trigger. Then, Thursday, when there actually was a fire, it had not alarmed, she said.

A representative of the fire department who coordinates with the Red Cross said that their initial count was 26 people who were displaced after the fire.

“We’re just so thankful no one was hurt,” said apartment complex owner Billy Key the morning after the fire. “I’m out here now and it certainly does look like a total loss. We’re working with the families now to try to locate them to other housing because they will not be able to reenter these premises. The Red Cross has been very, very helpful. They were out here at 11 p.m. after the fire trying to help the families.”

Key said that there is significant fire damage to six of the eight apartment units of Building F and serious smoke and water damage throughout.

“We’re grateful for the quick response from the fire departments and first responders,” Key said.

This is the third fire at Pine Valley Apartments in the last two and a half years. On June 5, 2023 a kitchen fire broke out in F3, next door to the apartment where Thursday’s fire started. Fire fighters were able to contain that fire to that single unit.

In October of 2021, a kitchen fire in Building B swept through that building, leaving eight families and 22 people homeless. The structure has since been cleared down to the cement foundation.

Pine Valley currently has 36 units in four buildings, and all those apartments are booked.

“We’re fully occupied,” Key said. “That’s what makes it so difficult. We can’t just relocate the families to another apartment here. I think everything in Wrens is pretty much full.”

A Red Cross representative said that the organization is helping to provide temporary housing for the people impacted by the fire.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Fire destroys Pine Valley apartment building in Wrens