Quail Ridge Apartment resident recounts the life-shattering moment
a fire changed her life
Thomas Sellers, Jr.
West 10/Legacy Media
The day of September 19, 2024 was supposed to be just another day in the life of Bartlett resident Charlene Williams.
She bid her husband Jerryl and his relatives visiting goodbye to head to her job as a nurse. Hours later, Williams was just happy to embrace Jerry and see her in-laws trying to make sense of what just happened.
“Imaging going to work and coming back home to nothing,” Williams declared.
Williams’ home was one of the many units destroyed in the Quail Ridge Apartments fire last month. The quick actions and alerts from the first responders saved lives and left property damaged.
According to the Bartlett Police Department, one person was injured, and several people were left homeless once flames engulfed several units that Thursday morning in Bartlett.
The three-story luxury, style apartments off Egypt Central had a fire break out about 6:16 a.m.
“I was at work that morning,” Williams recalled. “I got a call from my husband that our home caught on fire. He told me about how the firefighters went from door to door getting everybody out. Then the fire came through the back of our apartment, and everything was gone.”
Part of Williams’ recovery and trying to make sense of the tragedy was attending her home church, the Ridgegrove Church of Christ in Memphis.
She shared a brief testimony and gave an update of her living situation. All her belongings and material possessions were destroyed in the fire. The Williams had to move into a hotel immediately after being displaced.
Multiple residents in the apartments were left without a home, and the flames were finally controlled by the Bartlett Fire, the Shelby County Fire and Germantown Fire departments. They surrounded the fire because the structure had begun to destabilize.
Williams shared video with her church members of the firefighters going door to door alerting residents to seek safety and to evacuate. Then Williams’ last piece of video was her Ring camera footage of her husband escaping and seconds later her living room being covered in flames. Within a couple of minutes, the burnt roof was collapsing over what used to be her life.
“I know God got us,” Williams said. “He will see us through this. We’ll be OK.”
The Williams family took a huge step on the road to recovery this past weekend moving into their new apartment and currently refurbishing their new home.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
