Young children injured in Ryan Street apartment fire

July 20– Two children were hurt in an apartment fire Tuesday, including a 1-year-old airlifted to Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville for treatment, authorities said.

Firefighters were dispatched to Savannah Apartments at 230 Ryan Street at 3:41 p.m. and arrived three minutes later to find "heavy smoke and flame showing" at unit D-5, said Capt. Steve Hughes of the Savannah Fire Department.

Robin Butler told police she and her husband Mark Butler were in the living room of the apartment while two of their three boys, Mason, 4, and Miles, 1, were playing in a bedroom with the door shut.

She said they heard a noise coming from the bedroom and when she went to investigate, couldn’t get the bedroom door to open. Mark then kicked it open and grabbed the two boys from the burning room.

According to police, Mark said he woke up around 3:30 p.m. to go to work, heard a howling noise and got the boys out of the room.

Robin said the 4-year-old told her he had been playing with a lighter.

Hughes said firefighters managed to extinguish the blaze within two minutes of arrival, preventing major structural damage to the eight-unit apartment building.

Only the apartment where the fire started was made uninhabitable, and the incident remains under investigation, he said.