Fire destroys Greeley apartment; no injuries reported

April 10--A fire Sunday morning destroyed an apartment in central Greeley, leaving a young family looking for a place to stay and property owners searching for answers.

The fire, at 37th Avenue and 8th Street, started shortly after 11 a.m. and consumed the apartment without injuring anyone.

Alex Tovar was enjoying a lazy Sunday with his fiancé, Karla Estrada, and two kids ages 2 and 4 when he heard the smoke detector sound its alarm.

"I jumped up to see what it was, and as soon as I opened the (bedroom) door, just tons of black smoke started coming in," said Tovar, who was with his family in the bedroom when the fire broke out. "I couldn't figure out where it was coming from because there was so much smoke -- you could only see the floor."

Without an extinguisher handy, Tovar looked for an escape route. When he realized there was no fire downstairs, he called to his family to come down, he said.

"I was terrified," Tovar said. "I've never experienced something like this in my life. It scared me, because my first thought was, 'Are my kids OK?'"

Nobody was injured in the fire, which Greeley firefighters responded to about 11:25 a.m. It took firefighters from two stations about 20 minutes to knock the blaze out, Fire Marshall Dale Lyman said afterward. Four apartment units were damaged in the fire, according to a Greeley Fire Department news released.

Although Lyman didn't have a damage estimate, he said there was "considerable fire damage." Investigators were on scene early Sunday afternoon, but no cause had been released, and Lyman said they aren't yet sure where the fire started in the apartment.

On the east side of the building, a ladder climbed past balconies to a second-story window. It was broken out with immense fire damage evident. Charred insulation littered the ground, surrounded by children's toys.

Neighbors talked in the parking lot. One of them, Shannon Woznick, made the 911 call because Tovar's family didn't have a phone.

Woznick went out to her balcony to smoke when she noticed the fire.

"I saw smoke pouring out, so I ran around front," Woznick said.

Another neighbor brought an extinguisher and did his best to combat the fire, Tovar said.

Woznick, who has one apartment between her and Tovar's apartment, said the fire was too close for comfort.

Property owners Linda and John Measner also were on scene, waiting to assess the damage. There has been one fire in these apartments before, which John Measner said was caused by a tenant.

"What kind of irritates me is we just finished putting new roofs on," Linda Measner said, adding that the roof was finished about a month ago.

Tovar and his family are looking for a roof to put over their heads, and he said they just finished paying rent this month.

He said he plans to reach out to the Red Cross, as he heard the organization might be able to find the family a place to stay for a couple nights.

"The complete upstairs, we lost everything," said Tovar, who doesn't have renter's insurance. "Our kids' beds, we lost our bed, we lost our TVs, our clothes. Everything's gone."

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