By Carol Anders Staff Writer
PLYMOUTH — Robyn White sat in her mother’s car stroking her cat Friday…the only possession that she was able to save from her burning apartment at the Michigan/Ewing Street home in Plymouth.
“I was just getting ready to take a shower, when I smelled smoke. I called 911 and grabbed my cat. Luckily she was lying on the bed so I could find her,” White said.
Only minutes later, a second call came in reporting a fire at the same location, only this one was from the other tenants of the two-story house that had been subdivided into apartments.

Mike Heims stood in a jacket and cutoff sweat pants watching firefighters from Plymouth and Argos Departments pour water into the structure from different angles. Heims said he was finally able to get his mother into a car to keep warm.
“It looks like we lost everything,” Heims said. “I don’t know where the fire started, but I heard a big noise in the basement.”
The first call was received at the Marshall County Dispatch Center at 11:08 a.m. When the crews arrived at the scene, the home was fully engulfed. Crews stayed at the scene until well after 6 p.m.
Plymouth Police and the City Street Department employees used vehicles and barricades to close off traffic on South Michigan Street for several hours.
Smoke billowed from the upstairs apartment and the downstairs areas as firefighters broke the glass window to get water into the unit.
The exact nature of the source of the fire is still unknown; however, a complete investigation will likely take place today with the aide of the Indiana State Fire Marshall.
City Water Department crews assisted with pumping water out of the basement in preparation for the investigation.
Even while the fire was still blazing, neighbors immediately started thinking of ways to help the victims. One neighbor made a call to the local American Red Cross office after he learned that one family did not have insurance and nowhere to go and yet another came out of her house with hot coffee.
According to James Hale, Marshall-Fulton Red Cross director, they provided hotel accommodations for the families living in one of the apartments with three rooms for a three-day period at the Red Rock Inn.
Hale said they were also able to purchase personal items for each of the eleven people living in the apartment.
“They were all laid off from the mobile home industry,” he said.