VIDEO: Unsung Heroes Put Their Lives In Danger To Help Their Neighbors In The Fire At Avalon Apartments

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – Two roommates and a brother are being hailed as heroes.

They woke up to flames surrounding their Avalon apartment and ran out, realizing more people needed to escape.

They were the first ones out of the building, and knew they needed to help their neighbors.

Firefighters say in a matter of minutes they kept people alive and away from the flames.

“It’s just God’s plan. He put us in the right place, at the right time, so I mean, it’s nothing we did,” says Colby Carpenter.

Colby Carpenter and Kyle McCullouch moved into Avalon Apartments, back in July.

“That’s our grill off our porch right here on the ground,” says Carpenter.

Now, their apartment is a pile of charred rubble.

The smell of smoke still surrounds building O after last week’s fast moving fire.

Kyle’s brother and the roommates were sleeping, preparing for a weekend bachelor party trip.

“His brother was on the couch in the living room. Our porch was on the backside, back here, and so he woke up and saw the flames out this side, and woke me up and that’s when we went. The stairwell is directly through the living room and we ran down the middle of the building, and then back around to the front side, beating on windows on our way,” says Carpenter.

Starkville Fire Chief Charles Yarbrough says those knocks on doors and windows saved lives.

He believes if the young men kept sleeping, another couple of minutes, several people would have died.

“It felt like two hours before we got everybody out, but I don’t know how long it actually was. I mean, they said like three more minutes and probably would have been some people, you know, wouldn’t have made it, but it felt like a longer to us,” says  McCullouch.

A few disabled tenants lived in the now destroyed building.

Kyle’s brother rescued one of them, while Kyle and Colby heard a mom with two kids yelling for help because she couldn’t get her disabled mother out of their first floor apartment.

“We ran in and she was like in her bed and we had to pick her up and try to get her in her electric chair, but her electric chair wasn’t working once we got her in there, so then, we just had to pick her up and drag her out. That was about the last person we could get out and they said everybody was accounted for,” says McCullouch.

The roommates don’t consider themselves heroes.

They believe there was a bigger plan in place, to give them the courage to alert neighbors with flames swirling around them.

“He happen to put us there and getting us knocking on doors,” says  Carpenter.

Twenty-two people once lived in this apartment building.

The Red Cross is providing assistance.

Avalon Apartments is taking in donations for the fire victims impacted by the early Friday morning fire.

Tenants in building O lost everything and only three tenants had renters’ insurance.

Clothes, shoes, beauty and hygiene products fill this room at the apartment’s main office.

The manager says the room is set up for those impacted by the fire to come in and shop and get what they need.

If you would like to donate, call Avalon Apartments in Starkville, or drop by the front office to donate supplies.