Dryer fire forces nursing home residents to flee

Nursing home residents escaped a two-alarm fire without injury early Saturday morning at Sun Bridge Health Care and Rehabilitation at 5607 Everhart Road.
   Wiring in a clothes dryer sparked the fire that was limited to the two-story building's laundry room, said Capt. Mike Werbiski of the Corpus Christi Fire Department.
   Firefighters received the call at 4:31 a.m. and arrived on the scene at 4:37 a.m. Four engine companies, two ladder trucks and 26 firefighters controlled the fire by 4:58 a.m.
   "We called for the second alarm just in case," Werbiski said. "We wanted to make sure if we had to initiate a full evacuation that we had enough people."
   Werbiski said the nursing home staff moved approximately 45 residents to another wing of the building instead of evacuating them.
   He said clothes inside the dryer caught fire and melted the plastic in the door. But before the fire could spread further, the sprinkler system went off. He estimated the damage to be $4,000.