Firefighters put out two-alarm apartment fire in Napa

NAPA, Calif. (KGO) -- Several people are looking for new homes after a raging fire at their Napa apartment building Wednesday night, a battle which left one firefighter injured.

Firefighters say three units were destroyed. One was vacant but two others were people's homes.

The man and woman who were home when the fire started thought they could handle it, but it grew at a swift pace and they had to give up.

"They noticed the fire on a back patio and immediately called 911, made effort using a garden hose to extinguish the fire but it had grown to a size where they could not control it," Div. Chief Darren Drake said.

The fire was burning the apartment building on Brown Street at 10:30 p.m. and was threatening another apartment building across the driveway.

"All I heard was, 'Fire upstairs! Fire upstairs!'" neighbor Elizabeth Simas said.

Simas was in bed in the building next door when an upstairs neighbor knocked on her door and told her to get out and move her car.

"And I go out to move my car, and there's just giant flames coming out of one window and just billowing black smoke coming out of the other. I was like... oh it's a big fire," Simas recalled.

Residents from adjacent streets also came outside to see what was going on. A crowd gathered to take it all in.

"It was really full rage fire. I just couldn't believe it. You see it on TV all the time, so it was amazing," resident Tom Fraley said.

Two of the apartment units in the burned building were currently occupied. A woman lived in one but was not home at the time. The couple who made it out OK lived in the other.

Their homes appear to be destroyed but firefighters were able to keep the fire from spreading to any other buildings.

"I felt really confident in the firefighters. They did a great job, they were out here, there were so many engines, and I just was really happy and thankful for Napa County Fire," Simas said.

The firefighter who was hurt by a piece of a metal in his eye was treated at the hospital and then released. He is going to be OK.

Investigators are still trying to figure out the fire's cause. They don't know what started it but they say that at this point, it doesn't look suspicious.