Reseda Apartment Fire Forces 250 From Homes : Blazes: Later Wednesday night, flames gut one unit of a three-story building in Sherman Oaks.

Matthew Bell, 12, was on the balcony when he noticed the fire on his apartment’s roof Wednesday just as the door slammed shut in the 25 m.p.h. winds that would blast the flames across the building, seriously damaging 24 apartments.

“It was on fire right above where my mom was sleeping,” Matthew said. “But I was locked out and I yelled and kicked on the door and that’s when my mom woke up. I was shaking bad.”

Fire officials Wednesday night were still investigating the origin of the blaze, which skipped through one of two U-shaped buildings at 11916 and 11926 Roscoe Blvd. and hopped onto the other, destroying part of the roof on one building.

Assistant Fire Chief Jim Young said there were unconfirmed reports by neighbors that bottle rockets and other fireworks had been heard in the area.

There were no reported injuries.

Nineteen fire companies and about 100 firefighters turned out in the high winds to fight the fire that broke out at the Cordon Apartments about 3:55 p.m. and was extinguished by 5:15 p.m., authorities said.

Fire officials estimated damage by fire and water to the two 32-unit buildings at about $350,000.

Later Wednesday night, fire gutted one unit of a three-story apartment building in the 4500 block of Woodman Avenue in Sherman Oaks, causing $50,000 in damage, authorities said. Two residents were treated at the scene for smoke inhalation, a Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman said. About 50 firefighters battled the blaze for about 25 minutes before bringing it under control, he said.

None of the about 250 tenants of the Reseda apartments were allowed to return Wednesday night to the buildings, which were still without power and phone service, authorities said. Some residents went to a shelter that the Red Cross set up at the nearby Winnetka Recreation Center.

Jose Louis Herrera, 30, and his wife, Yadia, 33, were the first to arrive after sending their 2-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son to stay with a relative.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” he said in a mixture of Spanish and English. “Our apartment is totally burned. Our furniture, TV, stereo and bed is gone.”

Red Cross spokesman Tom Thompson said officials were expecting about 40 people to use the shelter Wednesday night, but were prepared for more people to take advantage of the hot food and cots as they arrived home from work or learned that they would not be allowed to return to their homes.

The Bells, who do not have renters insurance, suspected that they lost everything.

Huddling on the sidewalk with his arm around his wife, Charles Bell, a bricklayer, said the roof of the building caved in on the one-bedroom apartment they shared with their son and a 17-year-old daughter, Heather.

“I looked in and through the front doors and windows and I could see right into the sky,” he said. “All of our stuff, it’s all gone. They said it’s mostly water damage, but the roof is all caved in, so if it’s waterproof and crush-proof, I guess it’s all right.”

When the fire broke out, Matthew and his mother, Julianne, grabbed what they could--their two pet iguanas and a box of family photographs--and ran outside, yelling warnings to their neighbors as they made their way out. Charles Bell, who was driving home from work on the Ventura Freeway, saw the smoke.

“I had me a bad feeling,” Charles Bell said. “Then I got to Winnetka (Avenue) and I knew it was our building. It was a shake roof and I told my wife when we moved here that I didn’t like it.”

Fire officials confirmed Bell’s description. “Anytime you get fire near a wood shingle roof, it’s going to spread quick,” said Firefighter John Mathers. “It’s essentially tinder. We’ve been trying to get it outlawed for a long time.”

Once residents discovered the fire, they said they organized quickly to get themselves, a few belongings and their neighbors out of the building.

Sue Smith, the complex’s assistant manager, said she was coming home from her job at a nearby school when she saw her daughters, Kymberly and Charlene, out of breath on the sidewalk. The girls had alerted the building manager when they saw the flames and then ran through the building pounding on doors and yelling as they headed out, Smith said.

“It couldn’t have happened at a worse time--3:30 in the afternoon,” she said. “Children are just coming home from school and husbands and wives are still at work so it was difficult to know who was home and who wasn’t.”

Smith and her husband, Roy, helped two women in wheelchairs out of the complex and then used a master key to open the doors of each apartment. “The people in both buildings care very much for each other and they helped one another,” Smith said. “Everyone just pulled together.”

While the majority of the tenants are expected to be allowed back into their homes today once electricity and phone service is restored, others say they aren’t sure where they will go.

“We live paycheck to paycheck, trying to save some money,” Charles Bell said. “Now it’s back downhill.”

Times staff writers Jeannette Regalado and Chip Johnson contributed to this story.