Apartment Fire Leaves 10 Homeless

Ten people were left homeless Tuesday after an early morning blaze tore through an apartment in the 400 block of East Pleasant Valley Road, authorities said.

An adult occupant of the second-floor unit noticed the blaze when she awoke about 1:45 a.m., said Oxnard Firefighter Dan Gildea.

One other adult tenant in that unit and five children, ranging in age from 4 months to 9 years, fled the fire before firefighters arrived at the scene, said Oxnard Fire Battalion Chief Terry McAnally.

Crews contained and extinguished the fire within 20 minutes, McAnally said, and investigators stayed on the scene for another 1 1/2 hours to comb through the charred remains.

No injuries from the fire were reported, he said.

There were no working smoke detectors in the unit. “It was a miracle they all got out alive,” Gildea said.

Only two of the four units at the apartment complex were occupied at the time of the fire, McAnally said. The seven occupants from the burned unit and three tenants from an adjacent apartment were taken to a shelter at Valley Baptist Church in Oxnard, he said.

The blaze caused an estimated $50,000 in damage and remains under investigation, McAnally said.