Scoggins said, “I had lunch in the oven but that wasn't it, and  then my husband (Danny) said there was smoke in the bathroom.”
“He had asked if we had been smoking in there,” said Lissa's sister, Shawna Ross, (whose husband Michael and their child were staying with the Scoggins). “We said 'no' and then he (gesturing to Michael) came in saying there was smoke in the hall.”
Scoggins explained that the family had only been living in the apartment for about a month, some of their belongings still in boxes as the family attempted to coexist due to all the adults being laid off or out of work. “We got out,” she said. “We didn’t grab any clothes, the diapers (for her 2-month-old baby) or anything. All our stuff is in there.”
She said because they were all new to the dwelling, none of them had renters insurance covering the loss of any of their belongings.
“We just got here from Tennessee,” said Ross. “There’s no smoking in the building so when we smelled it we knew.”
She said they grabbed what essentials they could but that it wasn’t much.
Assistant fire chief Cal Barker said no families were displaced by the fire, but there was smoke damage to the building and light smoke damage to adjacent buildings.
Barker said the fire was caused by an electrical short. There is no estimate of damage at this time.
The street was cordoned off while emergency personnel kept back the ever-growing crowd of onlookers and firefighters broke out plate-glass and other windows.
Argos and Bremen fire departments assisted Plymouth with extinguishing the fire.