The fire at Oak Trail Apartments Friday was started by lightning, according to Leeds Fire Chief Charles Parsons.
The fire displaced 50 residents and badly damaged or destroyed 19-of-20 units in the building.
"It was a huge fire,” Mayor David Miller said. “You could smell it all over the town. I came up here in the middle of the night and even from hundreds of yards away the smoke was so thick you could hardly breathe."
At least three students from neighboring Leeds High School were at the apartment building when it erupted in flames.
Jermaine Williams heard the noise that he believes was caused by the lightning striking the building.
“It was like a big boom and my friend VJ, he smelled something burning,” Williams said.
“It smelled like burnt wires or something,” Vincent Herlong said.
Their friend, Braxton Ragland, was inside a different apartment at the complex – the very apartment where they said the fire started.
“I went in the room to see what it was and it was foggy and fully of smoke,” Ragland said. “The electricity was coming through. The outlet – it was blue sparks coming out. I was like nervous…nerve racking. I was like ‘Call 911.’ I was like ‘we got to get out.’”
All three teens managed to escape the building along with all other tenants.
Today, they returned to find the building still smoking.
For Ragland, that return trip didn’t take long – he lives just across the parking lot from the building that caught on fire.
“I woke up this morning and looked across the street. I was ‘Oh, my gosh. People lost their house.’”