WOODHAVEN, Mich. (WXYZ) — A Woodhaven couple is staying in a hotel after their condo burned to the ground Tuesday.
The fire was so large it damaged multiple homes in the Pine Arbor Condominiums neighborhood.
Shari Baldwin was just getting home from work when she saw smoke coming out of her neighbor's house. She lives directly across the street.
"I ran over to the door and he yelled, 'Come on in.' I went in and said there is a fire in your garage," Baldwin said. "And he came out, then the health care worker came out and got their mom out."
Craig Morgan and his wife Joan live in the home.
Their daughters say Joan Morgan has Parkinson's disease and needs around-the-clock care. Her caregiver was also in the house at the time of the fire.
"I didn't see my stepmom at first because he (dad) was just standing there watching it burn and then I finally saw her and she was out," the couple's daughter Michelle Olson said as she was fighting back tears.
Joan Morgan's caregiver Dolores picked her up and wheeled her out of the house. It was so abrupt that Joan Morgan's shoes were left on the lawn.
Olson says the fire was unlike anything she's ever seen before.
All that is left of the house is a burnt wooden frame and rubble. The couple had only lived there a year.
"My dad couldn't care for her anymore. He needed help, so we moved them here," said Jodi Herring, the couple's daughter. "And it's just one thing after another with her health and his health, and now this happens."
Their father got a new Ford Bronco for his 76th birthday and that's gone now too.
"Awful, devastated," Herring said. "Especially with the Bronco — I know it was material things, but that was his happy place."
The day the fire started Morgan did something he never does: he took off his wedding ring. It was inside the master bedroom, which was actively burning. His daughters begged the fire chief to go in and save it.
"And he came out with it and it was fine. That was huge," Herring said.
Herring says the biggest relief of all was her dad and stepmom are safe and OK.
Herring and Olson are grateful their parents have heroic neighbors like Baldwin.
"No words — thank you. She's our saving grace," Herring said.
Olson and Herring say the fire inspector will be out there on Friday to determine the cause of the fire.
Related: Fire chiefs urge people to come up with fire escape plans: 'Things can be replaced, people can't'
