Monessen firefighter Stan Marinos was just waking up Thursday morning when he noticed the vacant residence next to his Schoonmaker Avenue home in the city was on fire.
"I was in the shower. I smelled smoke, and I went upstairs. I looked out the window, and the whole house was on fire," said Marinos, a 15-year member of Monessen Fire Department No. 1. "My shower is in the basement. I've got glass block window. You could see the orange glowing in it. The flames were rolling out. They were literally licking my house. I hurried up and ran upstairs and told my son to finish getting dressed."
Meanwhile, Mandy Frost of Monessen noticed smoke and flames coming out of the vacant house at 155 Schoonmaker Ave. about 7 a.m. as she was driving downtown.
Frost said her training as a medical assistant kicked in.
She called 911, ran to Marinos' house and began to pound on his front door.
"We were trained that if anything like this goes on, you have to react, even if no one's there," Frost said. "The fire was bellowing out of the front of the building. The flames were shooting out of the side windows onto his porch. It was everywhere.
"I'm like, 'Oh, God, I'm going to catch on fire.' But, I didn't care. I was going to kick (Marinos') door in."
Marinos let Frost into the house, and she grabbed his 5-year-old son, Caden Hutchinson, from the living room as Marinos got dressed.
"He was in there watching cartoons. He was calm," Marinos said of his son. "He's taken the fire school stuff with me, so he's kind of familiar with what to do, but not to this magnitude."
Standing on the street as the firefighters battled the fire, Marinos said he was thankful he noticed the flames in time.
"I'm shaken up," he said. "My wife was out. She was already at work."
Minutes after Marinos, his son and Frost made it to safety, Monessen firefighters arrived and began to fight the blaze.
No injuries were reported.
