Red Cross Helping Plantation Residents Forced Out By Flames

PLANTATION (CBS4) – The families displaced by a fire in a Plantation apartment building Sunday still haven't been able to get back into their homes to claim their belongings.

Roughly a dozen families were impacted by the fire which started around 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning at the Lake Park Gardens apartments at 4750 NW 10th Court in Plantation. The American Red Cross has been on the scene helping the families dealing with the losses.

"I was scared, I was totally scared," said 12-year-old Tiffany Persaud. "It was out of control."

"The whole side of my bed was in flames," said Norris Brown.

Brown lived in the third floor apartment where the fire originated. Fire investigators have ruled careless smoking as the official cause of the fire. When we asked Brown about it, he told us all he could remember was running to get water to put the fire out.

"I panicked and I fell down and that's when my brother helped me up and we just ran out," said Brown.

Nearly an hour after making it out to safety Brown was still visibly shaken and so were his neighbors.

"This is another one of those days, this whole year has been rough for me and this is just another day that is really bad," said Patricia Randass.

It took firefighters about three hours to extinguish the flames

Monday, neighbors in the complex were trying to help out those who lost their homes.

"We prepared the clubhouse so that people who came, there was cooking, it's a really beautiful thing," said resident Guy Roumain. "Everybody got together, that's the main thing."

Firefighters said the cause of the fire was smoking.