Police officer, woman hospitalized after downtown Fort Myers apartment fire

An apartment fire in downtown Fort Myers sent a police officer and a woman to the hospital for treatment.

The Fort Myers Fire Department and the Fort Myers Police Department were dispatched to an apartment complex located on Marsh and Michigan avenues, early Thursday morning.

Firefighters reported that the woman was standing on the doorstep of the apartment that caught on fire and had to be transported to a hospital in Tampa burn ward for fire-related injuries and smoke inhalation.

According to a neighbor, the woman lived alone in the home and is partially blind. The neighbor told WINK News that he rescued the woman and used a pillow to open the door due to how hot the doorknob was.

“I was lying on the couch in my living room, and I smelt a strong smoke. I ran into my bedroom, and I was like, what’s on fire? There wasn’t nothing, so I opened the back door, and the smoke came in into the back where we live,” said neighbor Estrella Vargas. “It was terrible. When I came out here to the front, the apartment was on fire.”

The police officer on the scene also had to be transported to the hospital for smoke inhalation. The officer has since been released from the hospital.

The state fire marshal investigated the scene and ruled the cause of the fire to be accidental, citing that it was possibly caused by someone smoking inside the living room area.

The Fort Myers Fire Chief stated that the firewall within the home prevented the flames from spreading to other units, therefore no other residents needed to be relocated.

The unit has been declared unlivable by the fire chief.