Fire destroys at least 4 Plant City apartments, displacing families

PLANT CITY On Sunday morning, the faint beeping of smoke alarms could still be heard at the Madison Park Road Apartments in Plant City, one day after a fire. Many of the building’s residents were back at their homes, ready to head inside to see what they could salvage.

One of the residents affected was Mark Persails and his family. They were enjoying a relaxing Saturday afternoon when Mark said he heard his neighbors yelling that the building was on fire.

He rushed to get his kids and dog out of the house, checked on his neighbors, then ran across the street to grab a fire extinguisher. He tried to spray the extinguisher, but it was no match for the growing fire.

“I would say within a matter of two minutes that thing went up,” he said.

On Sunday morning, Mark and his girlfriend went inside to sift through the damage. He snapped photos of his kids’ rooms and some of the floors that had burned through to the apartment below.

“It was pretty emotional for her. I was just trying to get the stuff out of there, but she was pretty emotional because she’s worked real hard for what she’s got and she was expressing that to me. So it was real sad going through there, to be honest with you,” Mark said.

At least four of the apartments were either destroyed or heavily damaged in the fire, and the residents who were living inside received help from the Red Cross. Residents in the rest of the block were temporarily evacuated because electricity and water were cut to the building.

The State Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating what sparked the fire.

This story was originally published May 7, 2017 at 10:46 PM with the headline "Fire destroys at least 4 Plant City apartments, displacing families."