The Silver Spring Penguin

One man was dead after an overnight apartment fire on Georgia Avenue near Selim Road, according to multiple sources.

Just before 2:00 a.m. Monday, neighbors at 8075 Georgia Ave smelled smoke and traced it to one second-floor apartment, WJLA News reported. Using a ladder, neighbors reached the apartment’s window and tried to handle the fire themselves with extinguishers, but they were pushed back by the smoke and heat, The Washington Post wrote.

Firefighters from the station across the street soon busted into the apartment and found the fire contained to a mattress in the bedroom, WJLA wrote. On that burning bed was the apartment’s 31-year-old resident, MoCo fire and rescue spokesperson Pete Piringer told The Associated Press. The unidentified man later died from smoke inhalation at the Washington Hospital Center, multiple sources reported.

Police told the Associated Press that the victim may have been smoking in bed and didn’t properly quash his cigarette. The apartment had two smoke detectors but neither had batteries, Piringer said during a broadcast interview with NBC4 News.

The man may have been an employee of the recently opened Lotus Cafe on the building’s first floor, the Associated Press wrote. Piringer told The Post that the building’s other residents were restaurant employees.

The Lotus Cafe occupies a spot that once housed My Le Vietnamese Cuisine, which succumbed to a suspicious fire last year. Monday’s fire did not damage the current restaurant.

Lead photo: My Le Vietnamese Cuisine, before arson took it out last year. An apartment fire in that same building killed one man early Monday morning. Credit: Ron Pace/SSP.

Embedded photo courtesy of Flickr user Chip Py the Photo Guy.

Updated Sep 8, 2008, at 10:40 a.m.

Updated Sep 14, 2008, at 4:20 p.m. to stop killer apartments in photo captions.