Residents of a Little Havana apartment were forced to find another place to stay for the night after a fire tore through their building. While South Florida battles bruising heat during the day, residents at the apartment at 2110 W Flagler Street were stunned to find their homes going up in smoke , Wednesday evening. “I was in my apartment on FaceTime with somebody and then I realized I could kind of like taste smoke while I was talking to them so I was like, ‘Wait, hold on,’ and I looked up and my whole room had smoke all up in the room and I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I think I have to go,'” said resident Connie Fernandez. Fernandez was one of many residents inside who were forced to make a fire escape. As residents quickly evacuated, some made sure to alert their neighbors to ensure everyone made it out safely. “They started banging on all the apartment doors in my building and I knew that we better get the [expletive] out, something’s wrong,” said Fernandez. As tenants fled from the two-alarm fire, Miami Fire Rescue crews rushed in to battle the blaze. “We arrived on the scene we found a three-story residential building with heavy smoke coming from the crawlspaces under the building,” said Miami Fire Rescue Lt. Pete Sanchez. Officials say due to the building’s design, it was imperative for firefighters to extinguish the flames as soon as they could. “Wood structure so it has a lot of open spaces on the crawlspace and up on the walls where, apparently, the fire began to spread,” said Sanchez. Sanchez said 60 firefighters pulled out all the stops to get the upper hand on the fire. “We had our drone operating and thermal imaging to make sure we could find the hot spots,” said Sanchez. In less than an hour, crews successfully extinguished the flames. Fire officials say it burned dangerously close to gas lines but was put out quickly enough to avoid a potential explosion at the building. Investigators later deemed the structure to be unsafe. All residents and pets were safe and accounted for but wouldn’t be able to return to their homes. A Miami Fire Rescue bus was brought to the scene so displaced residents could sit inside to get some A/C and water. As they waited for the Red Cross to arrive, many of those residents worried about what comes next. “I need a place to live because the building uninhabitable. I need somewhere to live,” said Fernandez. The Red Cross later made arrangements with the City of Miami’s Department of Human Services for displaced residents in need of shelter to stay at a hotel in Miami Springs. ...read more read less