SCRANTON -- More than 24 hours after a massive fire gutted a rooming house in Scranton, construction crews have already started to bring it down.
The fire broke out around 8 p.m. Wednesday in the city’s Pinebrook section.
Massive flames and smoke billowed out of a rooming house on Capouse Avenue, after a fire broke out.
Residents fled for safety in the nick of time, as cell phone video captured the building tumbling down a half hour later.
Bobby DeGraw lives next door to the house and watched as people ran for their lives.
“We came out and flames everywhere and people were coming out of the windows, so the cops told us to get out of the house, we took the kids,” said DeGraw.
Less than 24 hours after that fire, construction crews were already bringing the uninhabitable building down.
The Red Cross says 20 people were forced out by that fire, including Owen Miles.
“Fire, I almost died!” yelled Miles, still shaken after fire crews had to rescue him from his window.
“I opened the door and I got smashed with smoke and I went wham, wham! Okay can't go that way,” said Miles. “I went to the window, and that's what I did, I was getting ready to jump out of the window, but like I said they was there that quick, they was like don't jump, we're going to send a ladder up and get you.”
But this is a building with a troubled past, operated twice previously as two different bars; once as the Doghouse Saloon.
Before that it was the Clubhouse bar, which was shut down for being a nuisance in 2006.
“This was a nuisance place for a long time, it's about time it finally came down, it's just bad that it had to happen this way,” said neighbor Stanya Dixon.
Still many say it's just a miracle no one was killed.
“Firemen did a great job, they did really good last night, they were here really quick and they kept it under control,” said DeGraw.
“Yes, very much so, hopefully they find new homes and things like that,” said Dixon.
The intersection of Capouse Avenue and Walnut Street remains closed to traffic Thursday night.
The demolition crew plans to be back at the scene Friday to start removing debris, so the roads can reopen.