Red Cross assists families displaced by apartment fire near 84th and Mills
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Milwaukee families who lost everything when fire ripped apart their apartment building on the Fourth of July are sharing their story, and the Red Cross is providing hope and a hot meal Monday night.
Krye's five, Brielle three -- alive and well, but now homeless with their parents.
"Everything's smoked out, smell like smoke, real hard to breathe in there," said Branden Love, fire victim.
On the Fourth of July, flames shot into the apartment the family moved into just three months ago, destroying everything they owned.
"I think it hit me hard yesterday because my son asked me when we was gonna be able to go home and I didn’t know what to tell him," said fire victim Kristal Reed.
Branden Love and his fiancée Kristal Reed are here now with just the clothes on their backs, and staying with his mom for the time being.
"It's tough when you have young kids that should be out in the yard playing, and right now the focus is on trying to find and secure a place for them to stay," said Mark Thomas, regional CEO, Red Cross.
The fire near 84th and Mill Road displaced 18 families, many with young children. On Monday evening, the Red Cross handed out diapers, water and teddy bears, and had leads on housing and prescription refills.
"It was scary. I ain't gonna lie. It was just unexpected," said Keiontes Montgomery-Reed, who witnessed the fire.
Four-month-old Skybella and her mom, Cherokee Saez, spent the holiday away but returned to heartbreak at their home.
"It's just traumatizing to just look at that and see everything that you worked for gone," said Saez.
The mom of four is now worried for the immediate future. They have no permanent housing.
"Just kind of worrying about what my kids are gonna eat next, you know, where we're gonna go to stay, you know," said Saez.
GoFundMe pages are now going up for families who lost everything.
As for how the fire started, witnesses say they saw sparks on an electrical box bounce to a car, then jump to the apartment building, but so far, the official cause has not yet been released.
You can find the GoFundMe page for Cherokee Saez here and for Kristal Reed, here.