BRANDON, Fla. — Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said a fire destroyed 16 units at a Brandon apartment complex on Friday afternoon.
Numerous people called 911 to report a fire around 2:45 p.m. at the Russellwood Condominiums.
The complex is located on the 100 block of Clocktower Drive in Brandon.
Ryan Herrera has relatives who live at the apartment complex and lost their home.
He said everything was destroyed including food, clothes, electronics and furniture.
Tamara Lancaster was at a nearby shopping plaza when the fire started. She saw smoke and flames.
"I never seen anything like that before my heart started beating. I had goosebumps. It was just scary, it happened so fast," said Tamara Lancaster.
"It just spread so fast like ten minutes so I pray to God everybody got out on time and nobody was hurt, but yes, it was very scary," she added.
HCFR said there were no one was injured, but two firefighters were treated for heat exhaustion. A dog and a cat were rescued from the fire.
Lt. Danny Alvarez with Hillsborough County Fire Rescue said firefighters responded to the fire within three minutes. It took them about 45 minutes to knock out the fire.
He said the fire is under investigation, but nine workers were on the roof using hot tar before the fire started.
"We believe they were working with hot tar. We don't have the full story or have all the details as to how the fire started, but there were approximately nine workers up on the roof at the time when they started making phone calls and luckily, we had a unit nearby and made it on scene within the three minute mark and really saved a lot of the structure," said Lt. Alvarez.
The American Red Cross was contacted to help anyone affected by the fire.
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