A fire in Redwood City Tuesday gutted two homes, leaving multiple families looking for another place to live.
The blaze started in a home on the 300 block of Poplar Avenue and spread to a home next door that was under construction. It also impacted people in a nearby apartment complex.
"Three families displaced from two units, although four structures were affected," Marta Barker with the Redwood City Fire Department said.
No injuries were reported, and the cause of the fire is under investigation.
Before the fire, Rafael Manzo said he was startled by an unusual sound.
"All of a sudden I hear this big boom," he said.
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He then watched as the flames spread and threatened the apartment he lives in.
"I tell my sister, 'There’s a fire! There’s a fire! There’s a fire!'" he said. "I tell her to grab all the important documents that we have. It was all alarming. I felt dizzy a little bit because I was pretty scared that the fire was about to reach us."
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He grabbed his cat and his dog, but he didn't immediately know if his two parakeets and lizard survived because he didn't have time to grab them.
Firefighters told Manzo's family that even though the fire didn't reach their apartment, it wasn't safe to go back into as of Tuesday evening.
