Residents Flee Fire in Apartment Building
About 30 people were evacuated from their two-story apartment building early Tuesday after a resident accidentally started a fire in a ground-floor apartment.
The woman stepped away from a hot pan of cooking oil just before 7 a.m. and returned to find her kitchen aflame. Within minutes, 25 Santa Paula firefighters and police officers were helping residents flee the burning building in the 500 block of East Santa Barbara Street.
The residents were unharmed.
The fire was doused within 20 minutes, said Santa Paula Fire Capt. Kevin Fildes, but not before it caused $60,000 in damage to the building and $10,000 to residents’ possessions.
By 5 p.m., four of the building’s six units were deemed safe and residents were allowed to return.
The other two units, including the one where the fire began, were destroyed, Fildes said.
The Red Cross is providing shelter for the six residents whose apartments were destroyed.
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