Six units in a Newport Beach apartment complex were heavily damaged after a building went up in flames Wednesday, Feb. 2, but no one was injured, authorities said.
Newport Beach firefighters were called to the Park Newport Apartments, in the 1200 block of Park Newport, about 8:30 p.m. and found a building with six units fully involved in fire, spokeswoman Natalie May said.
Firefighters, with help from Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa fire departments and the Orange County Fire Authority, contained the fire to the six units in 15 minutes and extinguished the blaze in a half hour, May said. In all, 61 firefighters battled the blaze.
Residents from the six apartments were displaced due to the fire, with residents of four of those units being temporarily moved to other quarters within the building said, Mark Rogers, a spokesperson for Park Newport Apartments.
The exact number of residents could not be disclosed due to California housing privacy laws, he said.
City officials did not immediately disclose whether the six units needed to be yellow- or red-tagged.
Someone with a hose is trying to knock down the flames at Park Newport tonight. Part of the apartment complex on Jamboree Rd in Newport Beach is burning @cbsla #cbsla #fire #parknewport pic.twitter.com/obAyPSE2hy
— michele gile (@michelegiletv) February 3, 2022
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Video posted on social media by CBS reporter Michele Gile showed a resident attempting to hose down part of a three story building with fire showing on all floors.
Rose Navarro, 56, had walked her daughter and grandson to their car after they had visited her for her birthday. She had sat down to watch a show when her husband rushed in about 20 minutes later and told her there was a fire next door.
“Everything was nice, it was a really nice night and I was just getting ready to relax,” she said. “The flames went up so fast, within seconds.”
Navarro said she had heard the commotion of the fire trucks and early in the night, she thought she heard hissing from a propane tank on the bottom floor. She said it appeared the fire started on the bottom floor and worked it’s way up.
“It all looks pretty bad, but definitely the third floor got it the worst,” Navarro said. “There were windows broken, the walls on the outside, the flames kind of worked their way up.”
Firefighters had evacuated Navarro’s unit and others around her, she said, having everyone move back and then across the street through a breezeway.
Firefighters had not yet determined the cause or origin of the fire, May said.
“It’s an eye opener of what little things can happen,” Navarro said. “It’s definitely something for us as residents to just…be aware of what’s going around.
It definitely wakes you up and tells you that you need to have a bag ready just in case,” she added.
The large complex sits above Newport Beach’s Back Bay and just north of Fashion Island.
Source: Orange County Register
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