MEXICO — A young man jumped from the second floor roof of a burning house early Wednesday morning and ran barefoot across Backkingdom Road to get help, an official said.
Mexico Fire Department was sent to 108 Backkingdom Road at approximately 2:30 a.m. after Terry Crosby, a volunteer firefighter, who lives across from the fire scene called the station, Mexico Fire Chief Gary Wentzell said.
Crosby said a barefoot man, later identified as Levi Rajaniemi, 20, knocked on his front door and told him the house was on fire.
Wentzell said Rajaniemi was on the second floor roof of the three-story home for about 15 minutes before he jumped onto a vehicle parked in the driveway.
“He had a cellphone but never dialed 911,” Wentzell said. “The fire had a good 20-minute head start before we were ever called.”
Wentzell said once the porch went up in flames Rajaniemi decided to jump.
Two other occupants, homeowner Garald Virgin, 40, and Timothy Larson, 45, had been on the couch on the first floor when the fire started, Wentzell said.
Larson was found outside the house, but fire crews were unable to locate Virgin, and Rajaniemi said he believed he may have gone back inside the burning house, the chief said.
“We called the fire marshal’s office right away because we believed we had a fatality,” Wentzell said.
After three hours of searching, Mexico police Lt. Roy Hodsdon and police officer Dan Carrier found Virgin.
“He had walked out into the woods and then back on the road down to his father’s house,” Hodsdon said.
None of the men were injured.
Crews from Dixfied Fire Co., Rumford, Peru and Roxbury responded along with Med-Care Ambulance in Mexico.
Wentzell said the house was a total loss and he was unable to determine the cause of the fire.
“We believe it may have started near the wood stove or chimney but there is no way for us to really tell,” he said.
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- Firefighters from Mexico extinguish debris from a house fire at 108 Backkingdom Road on Wednesday. Mexico Fire Chief Gary Wentzell said none of the three men in the house used his cellphone to call 911.
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- An exhausted firefighter picks up hose after a house fire at 108 Backkingdom Road in Mexico. Three men who lived at the three-story home escaped without injury.
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- An SUV sits in the driveway of a home that was destroyed by fire early Wednesday morning at 108 Backkingdom Road in Mexico. Levi Rajaniemi, one of the three occupants of the house, jumped from a second story roof onto the vehicle.
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