Dozens of apartment units impacted after massive fire breaks out at Cambridge Square in Monroeville
MONROEVILLE, Pa. (KDKA) -- More than 60 people lost their homes in a large apartment fire in Monroeville overnight.
"I was like laying down, and I hear a big boom, and I'm just like what the heck is that, and I hear someone say like, 'Come out it's a fire, it's a fire!'" said Oneeka Jones.
When Jones heard someone screaming there was a fire, she woke her daughter up. They ran out of their unit at the Cambridge Square Apartments in the middle of a bitterly cold night.
"All you could see is flames, and it was a bunch of flames coming from the apartment, which is 213, where it started from," Jones said.
Emoni Hines was also awake when the fire started.
"I wake my boyfriend up, and my son and I get them out the house, and then I ran in the hallways and everywhere, and I started knocking on everybody's doors; it was crazy," Hines said.
Firefighters said flames were shooting out of the building just before 1 a.m., then the blaze spread quickly to the other two buildings. All three buildings make up one section of garden-style apartments in the complex.
The chief of Monroeville Fire Station 4, Logan Stadler, told KDKA-TV no one was transported to the hospital, but some people went to the hospital to seek medical attention.
Monroeville Police Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator Doug Cole said around 28 units were destroyed or damaged and 65 people are displaced. They have all found temporary shelter.
"Police officers who helped evacuate and fire guys did a great job of making sure they got this thing put out and there were no injuries, minor injuries to some civilians but no serious injuries," Chief Cole said.
The Salvation Army was at the scene along with the American Red Cross of Greater Pennsylvania. The Red Cross quickly opened an emergency shelter at the Monroeville Senior Citizen Center, which later closed in the afternoon.
"We made sure people were safe and warm, we got some food in there for them, and we're doing some immediate assistance to help to take care of people for the next few days while they figure out what their recovery plan is," said Carlos Carmona, disaster program manager for the Red Cross.
Now, tenants are heartbroken they have to start from scratch.
"I just purchased a brand-new bed, a brand-new bed frame, brand-new living room set. Everything is brand new and it's gone," Erica Parran said.
She said she had just put her nephew to bed when her neighbor came banging on her door, screaming the building was on fire. Parran claims there was no sprinkler system and the smoke alarms never went off.
"No smoke alarms went off up here," Parran said.
While the fire is being investigated, Parran and several others KDKA-TV spoke to at the scene believe they have an idea of what may have sparked the flames.
"There are witnesses that live in that building and seen him with an M-88 firework that did this devastation to us," she said.
Chief Stadler said the initial call came in for a reported outlet on fire, but the official cause of the fire is unknown and under investigation. The Allegheny County Fire Marshal is investigating the cause of the blaze.