At least one person has been killed and at least 18 families left without a home after a huge fire engulfed a New Jersey apartment block.
The blaze broke out at around 12.30am on Friday morning in The Villa complex along Prospect Street and Park Avenue in East Orange.
Horrifying footage captured flames roaring from the roof of the four-storey tower while thick, heavy smoke billowed into the air.
Families were evacuated from the building and the entire intersection was shuttered as firefighters from multiple departments descended on the scene.
East Orange Fire Department called on the South Orange and Newark fire departments to assist in trying to bring the blaze under control, with the complex still ablaze more than seven hours later.
The Essex County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to The Independent on Friday morning that firefighters had found a woman dead inside the building.
The victim’s identity has not been publicly released and no further details are known at this time.
East Orange Mayor Ted Green, who arrived on the scene at around 4am, said that at least 18 families had been displaced by the blaze. At that time there were no reports of injuries to residents or firefighters.
“My goal was to make sure that, as the mayor, that I come out and just make sure these families – that’s the most important part, these families that are now out of a home – that we had a secure place,” he told CBS2.
“David Williams, which is our OEM person, he made sure that he secured a place for the people to go, made sure we had an engine out here for the families to have water, beverages, and things of that nature.
“So right now, our goal is to make sure we get the fire out, and make sure that we connect with the families and do the best we can to get them somewhere to live safe.”
The Red Cross tweeted around 6am that its disaster workers were on the scene “assessing the immediate needs of affected families”.
One resident man who lives nearby said that he initially thought it was gunshots when he heard the sound of the roaring fire.
“I ran to my window, looked out the window, I seen people running up the street to Prospect Street, and it was like, ‘There’s a fire, there’s a fire in the back of the building’,” he told CBS2.
“So I went on my fire escape to look out the back of the building. That’s when I seen the building engulfed in flames.”
The cause of the blaze is currently unclear.
