WEST CHESTER, Ohio — Fourteen people, including three children, were displaced from their homes after a fire broke out at an apartment complex in West Chester early Friday morning.
West Chester fire officials were called to the Meadow Ridge apartments located in the 5400 block of Aster Park Drive for reports of a working fire in progress Friday morning just before 4 a.m., according to Assistant Fire Chief David Pickering.
Pickering said the fire started in a first-floor apartment and quickly spread to an area attic. The fire department was able to contain the blaze to four apartments.
All residents exited on their own, and no injuries were reported, Pickering said.
The Red Cross was called to assist the 11 adults and three children who were displaced as a result of this fire.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The complex was the location of a deadly fire in 2022 that claimed the lives of two children. Two other children were critically injured.
"It was shocking because we had a recent fire down here earlier," said James Thomas, a resident in the complex. "So it kind of blew my mind, like we keep having fires. I wasn't really understanding, but yeah, it was surprising for sure."
Thomas said he was on his way home from work around 6 a.m. Friday morning when he began to see billowing smoke.
"There was about seven or six different families — they ain't have no shoes on or nothing," he said. "They was just tryna' get out the building, like evacuate the smoke."
As Thomas watched on, all he could think to do was hit record.
"I just seen mad smoke, people coming out the building," he said. "Really, [their] roof is gone. I think the inside had some damage too, I'd seen."
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