Massive Fire Rips Through West Windsor Township Apartment Complex
WEST WINDSOR TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBS) -- A massive fire ripped through a New Jersey apartment complex, displacing dozens of people and injuring four firefighters. It happened at the Avalon Princeton Junction Apartments in West Windsor Township, Mercer County.
Building 8 sits dark on Wednesday night, gutted by smoke and fire. Officials say those firefighters sustained only minor injuries and fortunately, no one else was hurt.
CBS3 spoke to three residents who were home when the fire started, two of them who lost everything in just a few scary moments.
"I was panicked," resident Christina Wilson said, "and I started crying because the fire spread so fast."
Images from the air and ground show the massive four-alarm fire that consumed a West Windsor apartment complex building Wednesday afternoon.
The fire started just after 3 p.m. At its peak, 200 firefighters were working to keep the flames from spreading.
"It quickly went to two-alarms," West Windsor Police Department Lt. Michael McMahon said. "Ultimately, it went to a four-alarm fire before it was brought under control."
"It went from the right side of the building to the middle in about 10 fifteen minutes," Wilson said. "It just kept getting hotter and hotter. It was so hot you could feel the heat from across the street. Ambers starting coming, back they had to move the fire line back. It was horrible."
Vishal Sapru FaceTimed with CBS3 just after his unit was evacuated
"We saw the fire coming toward our side of the unit as well and pretty much it engulfed everything," Sapru said.
His is one of 24 apartments destroyed.
"You see smoke, you run, so I grabbed my phone, my keys and my work laptop, that was it," one resident said.
We asked the resident if she lost everything.
"I think so," she said. "It looks that way. But I'm safe and I'm counting my blessings on that."
The Red Cross is assisting the families impacted by the fire.
West Windsor fire and police detectives, along with the Mercer County Prosecutor's Office, are heading the investigation into what caused this tragedy.
CBS3's Alicia Roberts reports.
