ALLENTOWN, Pa. — When Kyle Davis was asked to help, he didn't think twice.
Davis, the 22-year-old son of two military parents, rushed to the aid of his neighbors as a blaze broke out in a row home in the 700 block of West Cedar Street on Thursday night.
He said he ran into the first floor of the smoke-filled home, no questions asked.
"It wasn't even like, 'Should I? Should I not?'" Davis said. "I just went."
He said he was working on his car with his grandfather just over 100 feet away when a woman ran out of 721 W. Cedar St. yelling, pleading to help get everyone out of the house.
"I come outside to look, and I see the smoke just take over," Davis said, standing outside about 6:30 p.m. — still in the same clothes he rescued several residents in, wrapped in a blanket as he watched crews from the Allentown and South Whitehall Township fire departments battle the blaze.
"The fire was chewing through the windows to the back of the house. The whole back of the house was completely engulfed in flames.'
People lived on all levels of the home, Davis said, but visibility got better as he got to the second and third floors to help them and their pets get out.
At almost 7 p.m., flames still were shooting from the rear of one of the other row homes, where the fire had spread. The siding was melted in some places and completely sloughed off in others, highlighted by the orange hue that showed through the charred remains.
Several homes were affected about a block from Seventh Street (Route 145), but an exact number wasn't immediately available from fire officials.
Davis said everyone appeared to make it out unscathed, except one woman who looked to have severe burns as she was brought out on a stretcher.
He said he overheard police say the incident had begun "as a domestic" in one of the row homes that was ablaze. Davis said he saw police officers take a man into custody shortly after.
A woman, who said she would prefer to not be identified, handed Davis her card to pass on to affected neighbors, saying she worked for a restoration company and heard the same story.
"So everybody pitches in, in the city."Matt Turek
Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk was at the scene and said he "was helping wherever I could," but couldn't comment on much because "there's still an active police investigation occurring, and the fire investigation is still going on."
"I've been doing this for a few years now, so I'm used to coming out in the cold," Tuerk told LehighValleyNews.com. "I think one of the things that I was able to help out with is that a lot of our residents who are affected are Spanish speakers... but we had a really awesome resident from the south side who showed up and helped the translation as well.
"So everybody pitches in, in the city."
The "awesome resident" Tuerk referred to was Carla Feliz, who said she got the call from her sister — it was her house that Davis ran into — while Feliz was sleeping.
She said a similar situation happened to her two years ago, so she felt like she had to pay it forward and help others this time around — just like how Davis helped her sister and her family escape their burning home.
Feliz sat in a Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority bus, keeping warm with her family — most of them bundled up in robes and jackets.
They didn't appear to be burned, but Feliz said they were suffering from other injuries.
"[Her sister] has three kids, one with asthma," Feliz said. "My dad, he's got asthma and he was breathing in all that stuff. So he now he needs medicine.
"It is what it is; at least they're alive."
The extended impact is what Davis found most heartbreaking.
"You do that because of your partner, but it affects six, seven families," he said.
The American Red Cross of Greater Pennsylvania said on social media it helped 12 people after the blaze.
