Residents Displaced By Apartment Fire

Fire sweeps through an east Tulsa apartment complex, leaving more than two dozen families homeless.  It happened Monday morning at the Lakeside Place Apartments.  The News On 6's Chris Wright reports

many fire victims lost everything, leaving the Red Cross scrambling to help as temperatures approached triple digits.

Sky News Six captured the devastation after fire devoured much of this apartment building at Lakeside Place, near 21^st and Mingo.  It appears 29 of the 32 apartments were damaged, 20 of them can no longer be lived in.

No residents were hurt, but one firefighter was injured and two more were treated for heat exhaustion.  TFD says the fire was started by left-over cooking oil on a first-floor apartment stove.

"Black smoke just poured out of us, I hurried and got my wife up and by the time we got up down the stairs, the whole apartment was just black smoke," said resident Jimmy Johnson.

Among those now homeless are Kenny Bock and his family.

"The building is gone.  All our stuff is gone.  It can be replaced.  But, me and my family is OK and I think everybody else is fine," said resident Kenny Bock.

Kenny, along with other fire victims, later met with Red Cross officials at a makeshift service center.  Besides food and water, victims who needed it were given hotel accommodations.

The Red Cross says with temperatures expected to be in triple digits the next few days, their effort took on an added urgency Monday.

"It is an extremely hot day, so we want to make sure that everyone has a nice cool place to stay," said Nellie Kelly with the American Red Cross.

Kenny says the timing of this fire makes it especially tough to swallow.  He and his family were all set to move to a new apartment, in a different complex, on August 1^st.

"We're just going to go day by day. Like I said, the Red Cross is helping us out, so we're going to stay in a hotel for a couple of days," said resident Kenny Bock.

Anyone affected by the fire who did not get a chance to talk to the Red Cross can still do so by calling their disaster hotline.  That number is 831-1109.