Smoke detector alerts Palm Springs woman to apartment fire

Nearly a dozen people need new homes after a fire at a Palm Springs apartment complex. It happened at the Rancheria del Sol apartments on Calle Encilia around 11:00 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Three apartments were affected, one two story and two single story apartments, but it could have been much worse, if not for a working smoke detector. Kerina Rios was home at the time asleep and alone. She was able to get out safely, all thanks to the loud alarm.

“I couldn’t think,” said Rios.

Rios is one of six people who call the two story apartment home.

“I didn’t know what to do, because I was alone,” said Rios.

When the attic caught fire around 11 a.m. she was fast asleep.

“I heard the alarm go on, then I couldn’t wake up and then I saw the flames go on, so I had to wake up, so I came running outside,” described Rios.

“Thank God when I got here she was already outside, she had the alarms go on and she got out,” said her sister Christina Rios.

Christina told us she was thankful the apartment had a working smoke detector.

“It was a good one too, it was loud. They just put new ones. She was the only one home and there is nothing left in the rooms. In her room most of everything is gone, she only got a little bit of clothes even her mattress caught on fire,” said Christina Rios. That was the same mattress Kerina was sleeping on just moments earlier.

“I don’t know what to think, everything is destroyed,” said Kerina Rios.

The Palm Springs Fire Department says construction workers in the attic most likely sparked the fire.

“Initial reports indicated there were construction crews on scene that were sweating some pipes up near the attic space that were attached to a hot water heater, that fire got up into the insulation in the attic and then took off from there,” explained Battalion Chief Robert Wright.

Once safe Rios and her family were allowed back in to collect what was left of their belongings.

“Only some of my clothes and that was it,” said Kerina Rios.

“It’s shocking of course, we weren’t expecting it nobody does, but it was out of no where. It wasn’t our fault,” said Christina Rios.

“We don’t have nothing any more,” said Kerina Rios.

Rios’s apartment and two next to it are not livable. All three families will have to find a new place to live until repairs can be made. The American Red Cross is also helping.