MARION, Iowa - A fire started shortly after 6:00 p.m. Monday night at Marion's Grandview Apartments, 1483 Grand Avenue. Everyone got out safely and no one was hurt when the apartment caught on fire.
The building has eight apartments inside of it. Firefighters say at least two have extensive fire damage. Others have smoke damage.
The person who lives in the apartment next to where the fire started wasn't home at the time. He's glad he wasn't.
As firefighters battled the flames inside Brad Egan's apartment building, his first thought was, “Oh my gosh, everything's gone."
But, then he felt grateful his girlfriend wasn't home. She's pregnant and due in January.
"I'm very grateful she was at work when it happened and I wasn't here, too. I just couldn't imagine if she was here when the entire place went up,” Egan said.
Egan, 19, and his mother watched as firefighters tossed the baby's burnt belongings out the window.
"I’m worried about how they're going to recover, where they're going to live and what they're going to do,” Jolene Egan, Brad’s mother, said. "It's devastating. You watch your kid work for something and it's gone in a split second."
The couple spent months gathering baby clothes and items from friends and relatives. They're teenagers and couldn't afford to buy supplies themselves.
"It's hard to describe. A lot of long hard work putting together and to see it thrown out the window,” Brad Egan said.
Even though he's lost just about everything, Brad refuses to let the fire destroy his life.
"It's hard to fathom how I'm going to find everything again and get it all together. But, eventually, things will start looking up again and we'll get back on our feet,” he said.
After all, Brad’s number one goal right now is to find a place for the mother of his child to call home.
The Egans and everyone else who lives in the building stayed with either friends or relatives or spent the night at a hotel.
Firefighters are still investigating what caused the fire.