Valrico apartment fire displaces residents days before Thanksgiving

Apartment fire displaces residents

A former Marine helped residents escape an apartment fire in Valrico days before Thanksgiving. Jordan Bowen reports.

VALRICO, Fla. - Multiple residents of a Valrico apartment building are staying in hotels after a fire tore through the Hermitage Apartments over the weekend.

A good Samaritan raced across the street to the apartment fire and helped everyone get out safely before fire crews arrived.

Pictures from neighbors show bright orange flames and smoke shooting from the roof.

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"Last night I was sleeping in my bed with my wife. I smelled something, so I went outside and opened the door and there was fire," resident Lester Garcia said.

Charred wood and ash are all that is left of Lester Garcia's apartment.

Charred wood and ash are all that is left of Garcia’s apartment. Garcia said he raced outside with his wife after waking up and seeing his balcony on fire. The couple made it out safely, but their three cats did not survive.

"Everyone was kind of in a frenzy so the first thing I thought of was make sure everyone else was out, so I just started knocking on doors," Dalton Jones, a neighbor, said.

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Jones, who is a former Marine, lives across the street and was watching TV when he says he heard glass break. When he went outside, he saw the building on fire and raced over to help people before calling 911.

Firefighters say all eight units of the Hermitage Apartments were destroyed. Image is courtesy of Hillsborough Fire Rescue.

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue says it got several calls reporting heavy smoke and visible flames at the Hermitage Apartments on Monastery Court. Crews arrived four minutes later and started putting out the flames.

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"I just wanted to make sure everybody was okay first and foremost. I wanted to make sure everybody was out. And there's some you know, some people wanted to go back in to grab some things. And I told them, I say that smoke is more lethal than the fire. So stay low, get out of there and you can replace your belongings, but you can't replace each other," Jones explained.

Firefighters were able to get the fire under control in less than an hour. The fire damaged all eight units in the building, displacing multiple residents. The Red Cross has since helped put those residents in hotels while they figure out their next steps.