A Peachtree City man who helped battle one of the most infamous fires in Georgia history passed away Tuesday morning.
Thomas H. Roberts, who retired from the Atlanta Fire Department as a battalion chief, was a mere private when he took part in fighting the infamous Winecoff Hotel fire in 1946.
That fire killed 119 people and resulted in the evolution of modern building codes. But Roberts and his cohorts were also successful in rescuing a number of people from the blaze as well, including a baby whom he met some 50 years later.
In an interview in Firehouse Magazine that was published in 2006, Roberts recalled that when his ladder truck arrived, people in the hotel had tied sheets together and were hanging out of the windows.
There were no fire escapes or a sprinkler system, as neither were required when the Winecoff was originally built.
Roberts climbed the ladder to save hotel occupants as much as six stories off the ground. Other victims, seeing they had no choice, decided to jump, and many died as a result of their injuries from striking the ground.
Roberts also recalled for Firehouse Magazine how he and about a dozen other firefighters used a rescue net to catch people jumping from higher floors, as the ladder only reached up to the sixth floor.
