Stuart Hayes was in his first-floor bedroom watching the end of the Buffalo Bills game on TV when he heard a couple of thuds come from upstairs.
At first, he didn’t think much of it. But then, about two minutes later, at 4:38 p.m., the smoke detectors went off.
Hayes, a pastor, said he walked up the stairs of his home at 51 Oswego St. in Baldwinsville and knocked on a door to make sure everyone knew to get out. The smoke was growing by the second.
Robert Emerson, an upstairs tenant, opened his door carrying a towel and invited Hayes inside.
“Robert said he was sitting in his bathroom with a wet towel over his head trying to deal with the smoke,” Hayes recalled. “I told Robert he ... had to get out of there.”
Hayes opened the door to the other apartment after no one answered, but he said the smoke was too much to enter.