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<\/p>\nColumbus, Mississippi (WCBI) \u2013 An early morning fire broke out in an apartment building, evacuating multiple families from smoke and water damage.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Residents of the Columbus colony apartment were able to escape the flames.<\/p>\n
Only debris is left for some families living in colony apartments. The walls will burn, the windows will break, and the house will be lost.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had to act quickly. We didn\u2019t have time to get what you know,\u201d said apartment resident Anche Wilkins.<\/p>\n
Anche and Michael Wilkins live in Building 15. The couple said they didn\u2019t expect to wake up to such a nightmare.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were actually sleeping, and that\u2019s when my husband said,\u201d Do you smell it like that smoke? \u201cSo you actually get up and out of the window Something looked out and it was actually smoke. And I opened the front door, which we saw smoke when our fire alarm was off, and our neighbor ran upstairs to take us out \u201cWilkins said.<\/p>\n
Wilkins said he was lucky to be successful. After nearly an hour of burning their buildings, most of their personal belongings are now covered in soot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t help thinking about everything we lost. You can\u2019t help thinking, maybe you went in and saved some. And some more. I saved it, so it\u2019s definitely a catastrophic loss, \u201csaid Michael Wilkins.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re only here for a month, so the fact that we\u2019re in the process you know, square everything, and we\u2019ve lost everything is very devastating. I didn\u2019t expect to experience anything, but I did, \u201csaid Wilkins.<\/p>\n
There were several agencies on site to extinguish the flames.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fire was spreading from top to bottom. It was really all around, but it\u2019s mostly at the top,\u201d said Columbus Fireman of Lukas Borntrager.<\/p>\n
Michael Walker, spokeswoman for Columbus Fire and Rescue, said help is here for the families of refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe American Red Cross is here for those who find shelters in need. It happens, but not often. It\u2019s good that smoke detectors were working in the apartment as well. That\u2019s what Walker said.<\/p>\n
And in this tragedy, the community came together.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just comforted to know that we don\u2019t really know everyone here, but as you know, everyone came to our help. We welcomed our brothers and sisters with Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses who stayed here, and they took us too. And despite losing everything, we It was just a comfort to know that I wasn\u2019t alone, \u201cWilkins said.<\/p>\n
This case is under investigation. Investigators said the fire started on the front left balcony.<\/p>\n
Everyone was able to evacuate the building and one was taken to the hospital for minor injuries. They were treated and released.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Columbus, Mississippi (WCBI) \u2013 An early morning fire broke out in an apartment building, evacuating multiple families from smoke and water damage. Residents of the Columbus colony apartment were able to escape the flames. Only…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5573,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5574,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5572\/revisions\/5574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jwforum.net\/portal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}