Fire strikes Middletown condo complex

Middletown, Conn. (WTNH) - An orange glow lit up the early morning sky Thursday as flames tore through a condo building at the Madison at Chestnut Hill complex in Middletown.

It happened about 1:30 in the morning, a time when most of the people who live here are sound asleep.

"It was unbelievable, unbelievable," Dora Buetow of Middletown said.

The fire alarm woke her up. Some of her deeper-sleeping neighbors didn't get up until firefighters kicked in the doors, but everyone got out safely.

"I thought it was somebody cooking in the middle of the night, 'cause that's usually what happens," Buetow said, "but there was an orange glow out back."

The flames spread quickly, and the fire burned hot. The building where the fire started was destroyed, the roof gone. On the building next door the siding melted.

Ron Robinson lives in the building across the street, and could feel the heat inside his apartment.

"I heard the fire alarm from the other building so we jumped up and I looked at the other building and saw the flames coming up and I was like oh God, and I was like, 'Babe get up'," he said.

He grabbed his daughter and got out, and showed News Channel 8 the video he shot on his cellphone.

"It just kept spreading, 'cause it was in the back and they couldn't get back there obviously," Robinson said.

He also showed News Channel 8 a layer of ash covering his car. Robinson's lucky -- he gets to go home. The people who lived in the destroyed building will be staying somewhere else for awhile.

Dora Buetow is thankful. The stuff she lost can be replaced.

There is still no word on the cause of the fire.