CENTREVILLE, Va. — As fire crews investigate the cause of a fire in Centreville that killed one man and displaced 30 others, neighbors are left to pick up the pieces of their lives.
Some returned to their scorched apartments Wednesday to survey the damage with insurance claims adjusters.
What they found was melted lamps, peeling paint, and piles of debris that still reek of smoke.
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“I look at it this way. What I have is bad. It’s not near as bad as the ones in the front. They lost everything," said one neighbor on the third floor, who asked not to be identified.
We met up with her as she was revisiting the rubble of her former apartment with the insurance company.
She said it was funny to her which things survived, like "those silly ceramic cats" in the corner.
Looking around at the mess, she said it's strange to think back to what happened.
She saw smoke coming through the door, and eventually firefighters burst through.
“I was standing about here, and they said I was over here in a daze. And I said, no well not really, kind of sort of, because I didn’t know what was going on outside," she said.
Her neighbor across the hallway, 23-year-old Anastasia Simakina, said she only knew about the fire because she heard yelling.
Simakina claims her smoke detector did not go off before neighbors alerted her to exit the building.
The management company for the apartment complex, AIMCO, said the smoke detectors in each individual unit don't trigger a building alarm.
"It’s kind of nerve-wracking. It’s traumatizing, especially, because you know we could have died. I’m on the third floor," said Simakina.
Now, she and her neighbor are staying in hotels, hoping insurance claims go through.
They and some of the 28 others who lost their homes plan to move into different apartments in the complex.
Fire officials are still investigating the cause and origin of the fire.
Meanwhile, AIMCO asks that residents do not go on the property so as not to interfere with the investigation.