Dozens of residents left homeless after devastating Cedar Park apartment fire

CEDAR PARK ― The reality that she had lost everything didn’t set in for Nicole Rocha until Wednesday morning.

That’s when she saw that her second-floor unit in building 10 of the Bexley at Silverado apartment complex in Cedar Park had a collapsed ceiling and melted blinds. “I never thought this would happen in Texas,” she said. “I thought the wildfires were in California.”

She was one of dozens of people left homeless after a grass fire jumped to the apartment complex at 13820 W. Parmer Lane on Tuesday night and destroyed building 10, where Rocha lived with her boyfriend, Ruben Telles. The couple arrived Wednesday afternoon at a shelter set up by the Red Cross at the Hill Country Bible Church in Cedar Park.

“We don’t know what to do,” said Rocha. “We have no belongings.”

The fire also damaged two other buildings at the complex, officials said. Authorities had not determined what caused the 50-acre blaze that drew hundreds of firefighters and was 60% contained as of late Wednesday afternoon. More than 20 state and local agencies responded to the blaze. Two first responders received minor injuries.

The American Red Cross is asking people who were evacuated during the fire to come to the shelter at the Hill Country Bible Church at 3351 Little Elm Trail to provide their name and phone number so the agency can start finding help for them.

To conserve water, city officials on Wednesday asked residents and businesses to suspend outdoor watering and irrigation through Friday.

Cedar Park Fire Chief James Mallinger said apartment residents first reported a grass fire at 6:16 p.m., and that the Cedar Park Fire Department responded within a minute. The largest flames were 60 feet high, he said, and ― pushed by winds ― hit trees near the complex.

"It started as a grass fire and encroached on the building by going from the grass to trees," he said. "Those trees were very close to the building and even touched it in some cases. There are so many ways that embers could have blown in, and I can't guess right now on the cause of the structure fires."

A total of 300 apartment units, 95 townhomes and multiple businesses were evacuated, according to city officials. Along with Bexley at Silverado, the nearby Whitestone Landing apartment complex also was evacuated.

No one spent Tuesday night at the shelter, but seven people came to relax and get some information, said Anthony Triola, an American Red Cross coordinator. He said the apartment complex had provided the Red Cross with a list of 20 families who were living in the building that was destroyed. There are 31 other families who live in buildings that were damaged, Triola said.

The apartment complex has a large population of Russian-speaking people, Triola said. Triola, who speaks Russian, said he spoke to some of the Russians on Tuesday night in the nearby Walmart parking lot, where evacuees were gathering.

"They were asking, 'Where are we going, and what are we going to do?'" Triola said.

Art Arteaga was among more than a dozen displaced residents who had gathered Tuesday night in the Walmart parking lot, where the Red Cross initially set up, and were watching the blaze from a distance. He said he could see it from his balcony and smell the smoke from inside the building. He grabbed his glasses, his dog's ashes and a few other things, and when he exited, firefighters were already there, telling him to evacuate.

He had "no idea" whether his building was destroyed, he said. A couple of friends offered him a place to stay.

On Wednesday afternoon, he said his building was still being assessed and that he wasn't allowed back in yet.

Rocha said she escaped Tuesday night with her Australian shepherd, Penny, and her car keys while her boyfriend Telles was at work. She said she was at home when the fire started. She found out about it when her mother called to ask about the fire, and then she looked outside her door and saw smoke.

“I saw neighbors running with backpacks, and people putting their children in cars,” said Rocha. “When I got outside, I saw the trees behind my building on fire, and the grass at the complex was on fire.”

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Another person who lost their apartment in the fire, who would not give her full name, said she was at home in her apartment in building 10 when she heard doors slamming and then saw smoke. Faith D. said she left with her car keys and her phone but wasn’t able to rescue her two cats, Ellie Mae and Mousse.

She said she returned to the building Wednesday morning to look for the felines but was unable to find them. She lost family heirlooms in the fire, including her grandmother’s blanket.

Hallah Karan, who lived in building 12 at the Bexley apartment complex, said she was working across the street at her job on Tuesday when she saw a fire starting at the apartments. “I was in a panic and felt like I was in a dystopian movie,” she said.

Her boss drove her to the complex, where she managed to rescue her two cats. She spent the night with a friend and returned to her apartment to gather some clothes Wednesday. The only thing she lost was the food in her refrigerator because the electricity was turned off, but she can’t live in the apartment because she doesn’t know when the power will be turned back on, she said.

Karan also said she never received an alert about the fire. City officials have said reverse 911 calls were sent to residents warning them about the fire and that police knocked on doors at the complex.

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Mallinger said it was the second-largest fire in Cedar Park during his 25-year tenure as fire chief. The biggest was in 2011, when one apartment building was destroyed, another was damaged, and a third was singed.

Brushy Creek runs behind the apartment complex and is surrounded by woodlands, Cedar Park Mayor Jim Penniman-Morin said.

At a news conference near the scene on Tuesday night, Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell encouraged the public to lend a hand.

"I'd also encourage all of our citizens here in Williamson County — we have neighbors that are in need, and if you can step up tonight and you know of someone that has been displaced, let's do what we do in Williamson County the best: Let's bring them in, let's welcome them, and let's take care of them tonight," Gravell said.

American-Statesman reporters Skye Seipp, Tony Plohetski, Ryan Maxin, Madison Scott and Amethyst Martinez and visual journalists Sara Diggins, Ricardo Brazziell and Jay Janner contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Dozens left homeless after devastating Cedar Park apartment fire