Families worried for inmates in Lee County Jail during fire

Wednesday, families were anxious, worried and helpless when they learned a fire broke out in the jail where their loved ones are inmates.

We spoke to the Fort Myers fire chief Thursday, who said it was difficult to keep people safe.

Jails are meant to keep people locked in, and with a fire on top of the tall jail complex, that meant firefighters had to use a different strategy: Move fewer people out, and instead, fight the fire harder.

Martricia Bowman’s son has made mistakes; he’s an inmate at Lee County Jail on Ortiz Avenue in Fort Myers. He’s a grown man, but Bowman’s son will always be her baby boy.

“I always tell my son every day that he calls that I love him,” Bowman said. “When he calls me, I tell him I love him, and he tells me he loves me.”

Those phone calls don’t come from across the country. They come from inside the Lee County Jail.

Bowman rarely sees her son. Wednesday night, she worried she’d never see her son, Dennis, again.

“My son, I’m just terrified about my son,” Bowman said.

Dennis and dozens of other inmates were locked in the jail when the building caught fire

Families anxiously raced to the jail. Firefighters raced to the jail determined to get to the top.

Because a ladder truck reaches 100 feet, it allowed firefighters to reach the roof of the jail. The roof is where the fire started, an electrical fire blowing smoke to everyone underneath.

“Not often do we ever practice on how to actually get into a jail or a place of incarceration,” Fort Myers Fire Chief Tracy McMillion said. “So completely different. We try to take the danger away from the people versus the people away from the danger.”

Firefighters fought hard to bring relief to stressed out families.

“To be able to feel safe to know that their loved ones were taken care of,” McMillion said.

A day later, those families were waiting to find out what happened and why.

One wife of an inmate told us she did not learn her husband was safe until Thursday morning. Many more families we spoke to said they have not gotten through to talk with their loved ones yet.

“I just keep the faith and, you know, keep going,” Bowman said. “So I hope everything is good.”