Rialto Apartment Complex Fire Leaves 30 Homeless (Press Enterprise, Thursday, March 20, 2008)

BS Ranch Perspective:

It is always a fire like this that reminds us how lucky we are that we have what we have, and so it always brings us to tug our heart string and give to those that need something that they could use! The food and water and even that they have children and it is scary that they don't have a place that is secure to live and, living in an apartment it is very tenuous, that with this happening it could place those that were living in an apartment, out on their own with no apartment, or any permanent address for quite some time, there fore now they are forced to look over their shoulder and see if Child Protective Services is after them or their Children to place them in a Foster Care situation away from their Mother or Father!! Being a person from a broken home that would be one very uneasy feeling that I could not take I would run away before they would take me away from my family!! But that is just me!!

BS Ranch

Rialto apartment complex fire leaves 30 homeless

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10:27 AM PDT on Thursday, March 20, 2008

By JOHN ASBURY
The Press-Enterprise

Video: Evacuated residents talk about Tuesday's Rialto apartment fire

RIALTO - About 30 people were left homeless Tuesday night after a fire charred a Rialto apartment complex.

The fire broke out in a parked van about 9:30 p.m. and crept up the side of a building, damaging the roofs of at least five apartments. Thirty residents whose homes suffered fire, smoke and water damage were asked to leave the complex, which was declared uninhabitable.

All but two families stayed with friends or relatives. The American Red Cross opened a shelter for four people at the Unified School District on Willow Street.

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John Asbury / The Press-Enterprise

Residents load their belongings from a Rialto apartment complex Wednesday in the 300 block of West Ramona Drive after a car fire that spread to five apartments on Tuesday night.

Some residents returned Wednesday morning to retrieve clothing and other belongings.

At the shelter, Ernest Buford, 33, said he had just moved into one of the apartments on Monday with his mother, Ladonna Christian, 51. They were eating McDonald's breakfast sandwiches Wednesday morning as Red Cross officials arranged for hotel accommodations.

"I don't understand it. It's devastating," Buford said, choking back tears. "I was partying one day and now I can't party no more."

Officials had not determined the cause Wednesday.

Reach John Asbury at 951-368-9288 or jasbury@PE.com