By Doug Irving and Elysse James
The Orange County Register
ANAHEIM, Calif. — A cooking fire caused $1.4 million in damage at an apartment complex in Anaheim on Friday, fire officials said.
Several apartments were destroyed by a three-alarm fire, and several more were damaged by smoke and water, but no one was injured.
The damages are estimated at $1.3 million for the building and about $100,000 for contents in the apartments, Anaheim Fire Marshal Jeff Lutz said. The fire was accidental and was caused by a cooking fire, Lutz said.
The Anaheim Fire Department received the call at 1:44 p.m. and sent firefighters to the 3500 block of West Savannah Street. When they arrived, the firefighters found flames and smoke coming from second-floor apartments in the Villa Regina complex.
About 50 firefighters were called to put out the blaze. All residents had evacuated by the time firefighters arrived, and 30 residents were displaced, Lutz said. The American Red Cross is working to find a place for those residents to stay.
Yenifer Pascual, 21, lives in the apartment complex, a couple of doors down from where the fire may have started.
“All of a sudden we hear people saying, ‘Come out, the house is on fire,’” Pascual said. Pascual, her 2-year-old son and other family members heard a loud boom as they were exiting the complex, and saw flames coming from a unit on the far end of the building on the second floor. She believes the loud sound could have been made by a stove.
Four upstairs units were destroyed in the blaze, five units were damaged by smoke and water, and one upstairs unit was damaged significantly, Lutz said. Two apartments in Savanna, a neighboring complex, were also damaged, he said. A third unit at Savanna had window damage.
Joann Kelley, a resident of Savanna, thought she heard dishes breaking and went to her patio door to check it out. Kelley saw the flames and felt the heat when she began opening her patio door. She screamed, “Fire!”
“Nothing but flames. It was completely engulfed,” she said of the kitchen in the apartment behind hers. Her apartment was one of the damaged units.
Knott Avenue was closed from Ball Road to Orange Avenue but reopened.
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