Fire hits north Raleigh apartments
Improperly discarded smoking material caused a one-alarm fire that tore through a north Raleigh apartment building early Monday and displaced four people, fire investigators said.
Posted — UpdatedThe fire broke out shortly before 5:30 a.m. on the balcony of a third-story apartment in a three-story building in The Village Apartment Homes, 8800 Autumn Winds Drive, firefighters said. The blaze spread to a storage unit, but sprinklers helped contain it.
Felicia Laws-Hinton, who lives beneath the third-story apartment, said she was awakened by the smell of smoke.
"I got up to look around my apartment, and as I went to my living room, I saw a little smoke. I looked out on my balcony, and I saw that the balcony above me was on fire," Laws-Hinton said. "But I'm glad I woke up because it could have been worse."
Residents called 911 about the fire, and approximately 30 firefighters labored to bring the blaze under control in 20 minutes, according to the incident report.
No one was injured by the blaze, but the third-story apartment had fire damage, and the second- and first-story units had water damage. Four people told WRAL News that their apartments were so damaged that they can't live there anymore.
Police said the residents of the third-story apartment weren't home when the fire started.
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