Fire Forces Closure Of Miami Beach Building, Residents Displaced
Miami BEACH (CBSMiami) -- Officials have closed down a Miami Beach building displacing 60 residents after an arson early Friday morning.
There's no word when the residents will be able to return to the building located at 2814 Collins Avenue. The Red Cross is assisting more than a dozen families.
Click here to watch Natalia Zea's report.
The fire also left a man with second degree burns on 30-40 percent of his body. Miami Beach Fire Rescue transported the victim to Ryder Trauma Center.
A man who lives in the apartment where the fire was intentionally set said the arsonist police are looking for is a woman who was acting crazy and who set fire to his apartment door. City officials confirm this was a case of arson that began as an attempted burglary call but they said they don't have a clear suspect.
Yan Iglesias and his son Yannis Minnaya said a woman intentionally set fire to their apartment door while yelling out a name and strange words.
"I don't know. It sounded like witch magic to me. She was like praying in Spanish and saying weird stuff," said Minaya.
"That woman was like a psychopath to me...That's why I didn't even want to open the door. I just called the cops when I heard her try to turn the knob," said Iglesias.
"She started kicking the door, sparking it up again and smoke started coming in the top and bottom portion of the door," added Minaya.
"We had to jump out the back window," said Iglesias.
The fire spread to four apartments including on higher floors.
"You see like a lot of flames shooting up the window and then the smoke and the windows blew out. It was pretty intense," said resident Ruel Brooks.
Residents said the building was already on fire watch by the department for fire code violations. City officials said the owners were and are cooperating to bring the building up to code.
That doesn't mean much to the residents, including children and pets, who now have to find somewhere else to stay, because the city has now declared the building unsafe and they have to find somewhere else to live.
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