Article appeared Jan. 26, 2006 on page 1A

This fire started late in my shift. About 20 minutes after I arrived at Riviera Ridge, the fire began to spread rapidly. I interviewed the people who had escaped the blaze. With the deadline less than a half-hour away, Liz Hacken drove to the apapartment complex to meet me. I went back to the office to type up the artilce and Liz called in details as the fire continued to spread.

VESTAL - As many as 140 people were displaced from their homes Thursday night after a fire ripped through a building at the Riviera Ridge apartment complex on Jensen Road in Vestal, fire officials said.

The fire started about 8:15 p.m. in Building G, a three-story structure that housed about 80 people in two- and three-bedroom apartments, Assistant Vestal Fire Chief Chuck Paffie said. Firefighters fought the blaze well into the night. Paffie said about half the building was lost.

There were no reports of injuries, and the cause was being investigated.

Residents in other buildings were evacuated and not allowed to return Thursday night after authorities turned off the power and heat to the complex.

Dozens of residents stood outside holding pets or a few possessions as the fire spread through the building. Firefighters stretched a hose about 100 yards through the complex to the building.

"It was real smoky at first," said Mike Mikulski,who lives on the third floor above the apartment where the fire appeared to have started. "But then we saw the flames."

With fire alarms blaring, Mikulski said he grabbed his mother, who also lives in the apartment, and his cat and ran down the stairs as the linoleum on his kitchen floor started to melt, he said.

"It's totally out of control," said Mikulski, as the flames began to burst through the roof.

Mikulski said he believes two 22-year-old women lived in the apartment below him, where he thinks the fire started. But he didn't believe they were home at the time.

Police and firefighters evacuated the surrounding buildings, forcing residents into the 10-degree night. Officials called in a B.C. Transit bus to evacuate the residents.

Volunteers from the Southern Tier Chapter of the American Red Cross arrived soon after the fire departments and set up at the American Legion Post, near Riviera Ridge, to help residents find temporary housing.

Sharon Aswad, local director of emergency services, said the agency helped residents displaced by the fire find overnight housing. Many of the residents were Binghamton University students, and the school offered overnight accommodations for them, Aswad said.

Ray Vega and his three sons stood in the back of the building as the flames crept toward his first floor apartment. He held his cat, Lola, in his coat.

"Right there is everything I own," Vega said. "Right there in that apartment." Glass shattered and smoke poured out of the apartment two floors above his.

Vega's sister, Nancy Rainelli, was cleaning her house when she smelled smoke. She recently moved into a smaller building in the complex. When she saw her old apartment ablaze, she rushed her husband and two young daughters to safety.

"By the time the cops came, the whole thing was fully engulfed," said Rainelli, as she warmed up at the American Legion Post, awaiting assistance from the Red Cross.

There is a firewall between the two buildings, but she thinks some of the smoke came through the attic into her building and damaged her possessions. Her family got out of the building unharmed, but their family cat, Max, ran into the woods after scratching Rainelli when they hurried to escape.

"I'll be on the hunt looking for him after this," she said.