WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — At least one person is dead after a fire early Tuesday morning in Luzerne County.
Flames went up around 2 a.m. at the Genetti complex on East Market Street in Wilkes-Barre.
It happened on the apartment side, not the hotel side.
Shivering and wrapped in blankets, people who live in the apartments owned by Genetti's Hotel in downtown Wilkes-Barre were forced out into the cold overnight.
James Warman woke up to his fiancée saying she could smell smoke.
"As soon as I opened the door, all I saw, I couldn't see nothing. It was nothing but smoke," Warman recalled.
He's one of about 100 people who are without a place to say after a fire broke out just before 2 a.m.
One person didn't make it out alive.
"It's like, wow, something really actually could happen that I can't make it out of a building. It was bad," Warman added. "I didn't think I was going to make it down those steps."
Resident Austin Badger thought it was a false alarm at first.
"A lot of fake alarms go off so it was kinda like, 'ah it’s just fake, I’ll go back over, leave me alone,' type of thing. Then I keep knocking, pounding, pounding and I go out and help my neighbor get her cat, and get her out. That’s when the smoke started to roll up from the third floor up to my floor," said Badger. "And I was up there for probably another five minutes after that started and the lights went out, everything else went out, couldn’t see a thing from the smoke."
It quickly filled the upper floors with heavy smoke, making it difficult for people to escape.
Wilkes-Barre Fire Chief Jay Delaney says helping people get out in the smoke was a challenge. Four people had to be rescued using a ladder.
William Bennett lives on the fourth floor which saw a lot of damage.
"When I went out the door, I seen nothing but black, dark smoke. There was not visibility at all. You couldn't see anything. Everybody was running into each other. It was quite chaotic," Bennett said.
"It was crazy leaving the building because when we had to walk down the steps from the 6th floor, we couldn't breathe," said Warman. "I tried to punch out a couple of the windows but they weren't breaking, it was like plexiglass. And I was like all I feared was my fiancée, I didn't want nothing to happen to her."
The Red Cross is helping the residents.
According to the Red Cross, an estimated 100 residents were displaced.
A state police fire marshal will look for a cause.
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