JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. — One person died following a fire at a duplex in Jefferson County early Saturday morning.
Crews from West Metro Fire Rescue responded to the home located on Vivian Street off 14th Avenue just after midnight Saturday morning. A neighbor reported smoke coming from the garage, according to a Facebook post from West Metro.
▶ Watch: Denver7's Lauren Lennon reports on the deadly fire
Upon arrival, firefighters found heavy smoke and flames and immediately started search and rescue operations, the post said.
Three people were inside the home at the time of the fire, West Metro said. Two escaped, but one person who was asleep upstairs did not make it out of the home and died, according to the post.
Firefighters located the victim and brought them out of the home. The victim will be identified by the Jefferson County Coroner's Office, according to West Metro.
Two firefighters involved in the rescue suffered minor injuries and were transported to a local hospital. They have since been treated and released, according to a post around 9:30 a.m. from West Metro.
Denver7 spoke with some nearby neighbors who shared the scary scene they woke up to early Saturday morning.
Josh Lent, who lives two doors down from where the fire happened recalled waking up to the smoke.
"Woke me up a couple times, and then I smelled the plastic in; it is just thick and, you know, kind of gross smell, and I'm like, that's not, that's not normal," he recalled.
Lent said he walked out the door to see the heavy smoke and "could barely see across the street."
"It's pretty heavy, you know." he said. "You walk out and there's a house on your on your street on fire, it's about the worst thing."
Another resident, Kelly Wahlmeier, who has lived down the street for 43 years, says something like this is rare for the neighborhood.
"It's horrible. Somebody died in that. It's horrible," she said.
Like Lent, Wahlmeier was woken up to the bright lights down the street.
"There was a lot, a lot of lights. That's what, when we got up and saw the blue," she described. "They were so bright, and that's that's why we came out to see what was going on."
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, West Metro said.
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