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Smoke alarms alerted a Warsaw man to a fire in his home Wednesday afternoon and he was able to get his kids out, but not before all three were injured.
Timothy Hines, 37, of 212 N. Cook St., suffered multiple cuts to his arms, legs and stomach after jumping through a window to escape his burning home. He also suffered from smoke inhalation.
Hines' 5-year-old son, Jacob, suffered second-degree burns and smoke inhalation, and his 3-year-old daughter, Katherine, suffered from smoke inhalation.
All three were treated at Kosciusko Community Hospital and released.
Warsaw Fire Department firefighter Terry Himes also was treated at KCH for smoke inhalation and released. Himes was fighting the fire inside the house when smoke got inside his mask, according to Michael Wilson, WFD fire inspector.
Warsaw Fire Chief Ken Shepherd said the smoke alarms and Hines' quick thinking probably saved some lives Wednesday.
Officials said that Hines was in a bathroom when he heard the smoke alarms going off. He went into the living room, where he saw a large amount of smoke, and rescued his son, taking him out the front door and telling him to stay outside. Hines went back into the house to locate his daughter and, after four or five attempts, finally found her under a bed in a bedroom.
Hines then opened a back window and handed the child outside to an unknown man and attempted to go through the house to exit at the front door. Unable to get out that way, he returned to the window, which was broken, and jumped out. Hines suffered several cuts from the jagged window glass.
Firefighters also rescued a cat from the upstairs apartment where nobody was home at the time the fire broke out.
Wilson said the fire call came in at 1:27 p.m. and Winona Lake Fire Department sent a crew in to help extinguish the blaze. Firefighters were on the scene until about 4:30 p.m. and were called back to the house at 5:45 a.m. today.
Wilson said the fire this morning was not a rekindle - it is believed someone intentionally set the fire just inside the front door.
Wednesday's fire remains under investigation, but is believed to have started accidentally in the living room of the downstairs apartment in which the Hines family resided. The structure is a house that was converted into two apartments - one upstairs and one downstairs. It is owned by Alan Kado and damage is estimated at $50,000.
