ORANGE : 3-Alarm Blaze Hits Apartments

A three-alarm fire raced through an apartment building here Thursday, destroying two apartments, severely damaging two others and leaving three people slightly injured.

About 30 residents were evacuated from the 27-unit Terrace Apartments when the fire broke out shortly after noon. They waited outside for much of the afternoon while firefighters extinguished the blaze and picked through charred remains of the apartments. Several units in the three-story building sustained smoke and water damage.

Tenants of the building at 180 City Blvd. West said smoke billowed from the windows of four units and filled the corridors on the second and third floors.

“There was smoke filling the hallway, up to five feet off the ground,” said Tom Harrelson, 71, who was visiting a friend in an apartment next door to where the fire broke out. “It was white smoke first. Then it burst into flames. It was rolling down the hallway, chasing us, and coming so fast.”

The Orange Fire Department, assisted by firefighters from Anaheim and Garden Grove, brought the fire under control in about 35 minutes, said Dick Dittberner, a department spokesman.

Two firefighters and one unidentified resident of the building were treated for heat exhaustion. The firefighters were treated at UCI Medical Center and released. Information on the resident was not immediately available, but witnesses said her injuries appeared to be minor.

The fire apparently started in the bedroom of a second-floor apartment. The tenant, Khamis Dohall, said he had left the building about 45 minutes before the fire ignited.

“I lost everything in there,” said Dohall, a sales manager for an art gallery who shared the apartment with his brother.

Security personnel at The City Shopping Center spotted smoke rising from the building across the street and alerted authorities. Two passing motorists also noticed the smoke and called the Fire Department.

“I was down at the pool when I saw a puff of smoke coming up,” said Frances Rogers, 61, whose apartment was gutted. “I got up to take a look and saw it was my building. . . . Huge flames from the second floor were just shooting up. It was horrible.”

Fred Sesma, 26, of Anaheim and Eric McLellan, 19, of Garden Grove said they jumped a fence and ran to the second floor of the building to knock on doors telling residents to evacuate.

“We saw smoke coming from under the door of one apartment,” Sesma said. “We kicked it open and it was black, we couldn’t see anything. We yelled, ‘Hello! Hello!’ but there was nobody home.”

Sesma said he and McLellan tried to extinguish the blaze with a corridor fire hose not far from a burning apartment, but were forced to flee when they could not get the hose to work.

By late afternoon residents were being let back into their apartments and the Red Cross was finding shelter and clothing for two residents displaced by the fire.

The cause of the fire was under investigation. Dittberner said officials did not immediately suspect arson.