MIAMI (WSVN) - Several residents are now displaced after a fire forced them out of their homes.
The fire that ignited Monday afternoon was unknown to the homeowner, and it wasn’t until the family’s dog started barking, that the owner realized that the fire started.
Nineteen people are now homeless and are receiving help from the America Red Cross.
Immense flames and thick black smoke filled up the sky at Miami’s Shenandoah neighborhood as the fire ripped through a home on Southwest 17th Lane and 23rd Avenue.
The homeowner, speaking Spanish, told 7News what he saw.
“I saw the flames. I got out of the house because I didn’t want to get burned up,” Lorenzo Hernandez said.
The fire fight was so intense that first responders had to evacuate from an apartment building next door as a precaution.
Mike Benitez dodged flames as he tried to get his parents in an upstairs apartment.
In the process, Benitez inhaled smoke and burned parts of his hand.
“When I came to open the door, it was hot, and I burned my hand, and then I closed the door, burned my hand again, and I called out for firefighters and they immediately came up, and they got my dad out,” Benitez said.
Soon after, crews were able to get a handle on the fire.
Hernandez does not know how the fire started.
“I don’t know anything,” he said. “They say they will send an investigator and figure out where the fire started.”
The damage, luckily for neighbors, was isolated to small parts of the roof and the exterior.
“I think God I do [count my blessing], he was with us,” Benitiez said. “He was with all of us as far as our lives. Everything else is material stuff that can be replaced.”
One person was rushed to the hospital due to smoke inhalation. That person has been released and is at home recovering.
Family’s are now dealing with their insurance company’s to figure out how to file a claim and move forward.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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