YORK, Pa. — Multiple families are without a home after fire officials say a sparkler ignited an inferno in York.
"Everybody was scared, especially the families. All these people were crying. For real, half of them got no sleep. The neighbors got no sleep because the power was out," said Brian Goodin of York.
Goodin isn't directly impacted from the fire, but he considers the people who are like family.
"It's heartbreaking to watch the flames get bigger and bigger and bigger and watch your house burn down," said Brittany Duncan, who rented an apartment that is now uninhabitable.
"Her [Brittany] kids were upstairs sleeping, I had to yell at them to get them out of the house. It was definitely pretty scary for them," said Amber Gilbert, who lived with Duncan.
The Red Cross provided immediate assistance to the families impacted. Gilbert says they will be staying in a hotel until they find their next home.
Officials say flames first ignited inside an abandoned garage on Fickes Way and East Gas Avenue.
"Look right here, the building right here should've been torn down a long time ago," added Goodin.
Goodin describes it as a place where people used drugs and threw away their trash. He questions why the garage wasn't torn down before the fire.
"We had one case where some guy was running from the cops," explained Goodwin. "He ran in there, fell through the floor. It was a battle trying to keep the kids out and the drug addicts out."
Now, there is just rubble.
"It's something people think is actually innocent, and here we have multiple buildings that burned down and multiple cars," said Fire Chief William Sleeger Jr.
Chief Sleeger says the flames ultimately spread to other buildings, and the heat melted property.
"At the tip of a sparker is a 1,000 degrees so that will definitely start a fire instantly," added the chief.
He is reminding people to use sparklers away from property that can ignite. Meantime, Goodin wants people to think about his neighbors who are now in a tough spot.
"Where we live and most of the people in this community, if we lose a quarter of what we have, we are really messed up," said Goodwin.
Chief Sleeger is concerned over the potential for more fires as it gets closer to the Fourth of July.
He remembers what he describes as a continuous cloud of smoke that hung over the city last year during the holiday weekend.
In 2020, the chief says the city handled 13 fireworks-related fires throughout the summer. It ranged from dumpster fires to fires that destroyed homes.