Two families have been displaced after a fire broke out at a neighboring building that spread to nearby homes.
The fire began at around midnight in the 100 block of North Carondelet Street and destroyed a three-story apartment complex that was under construction, leaving the wooden frame charred.
As embers flew in the air, one man said he began knocking on neighbors windows and doors to alert them.
“The front bush started going on fire and I put it out with the hose,” Alex Rubio, a Westlake resident, said.
The fire spread to a duplex next door where a family of four and a family of seven were living.
One woman said she woke up to see a bright light. She thought it was morning already, but encountered a wall of flames.
She rushed her family out of the home, including a baby, before the flames destroyed her bedroom and a neighbor’s car.
The woman said if she had left to work, her children might have been dead.
Firefighters were still on scene early Thursday for cleanup.
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