Tampa Tribune
TAMPA, Fla. — Fire raged through a Town ‘N Country apartment building early Thursday morning, leaving dozens of residents temporarily homeless.
“All I have is in my pocketbook,” said Shoma Samaroo, who lived in one of the apartments near the origin of the blaze on the north end of a building at the Captiva Club Apartments. “I started to smell smoke and I looked outside. People were outside and then someone pounded on my door. I saw flames from the apartment next door.”
Multiple firefighting units were called out just before 5:30 a.m. to the complex off Kelly Road, just north of Memorial Highway, Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokeswoman Nacole Revette said.
Firefighters arrived to find smoke and flames coming out of the building at 4513 Castaway Drive within the complex.
No residents were injured, but a firefighter was hospitalized, she said.
John Niemynski woke to see flames on a neighbor’s second-floor balcony.
“The whole porch was on fire,” he said. “I tried to get a fire extinguisher from our back porch, but there was too much smoke. I went downstairs and pulled the fire alarm and then ran around the back side of the building to grab a hose.
“But there was way too much fire.”
He said his apartment was destroyed.
“Everything is gone,” he said.
Apartment managers were working with the American Red Cross to find housing for the 39 residents who were displaced. They either will be settled in vacant apartments within the complex or temporary hotel rooms.
“Everyone was evacuated and accounted for,” Revette said.
Twelve units out of 16 in the building were damaged, six on the top floor by fire and smoke and six on the bottom floor by water.
Investigators were on the scene to determine the cause, but couldn’t go inside because the structural integrity of the building was compromised. Ravette said investigators were in a ladder truck after the fire had been extinguished peering into the burned parts of the building trying to find where the fire started.
The fire did not spread to other buildings in the complex, Revette said.
Josette Alvarez lives in a unit at the south end of the building. Though it was not damaged by fire, it is flooded, she said.
She awoke to the sound of fire alarms going off, which is not unusual, she said. But when someone started banging on her door, she knew it was time to get out.
“There was a lot of confusion going on,” she said.
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