GoFundMe account set up to help Orange County residents displaced by apartment fire

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith is trying to raise money to help more than a dozen people forced out of their homes after a large apartment fire.

Many residents at the Colonial Landings apartment complex were packing up Monday because they were told they must be out by Tuesday.

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Marie Pierce and her husband are picking up the pieces after a fire ripped through their apartment building last week.

Someone pounded on her door at around 8 a.m. Wednesday as the fire engulfed the building.

Pierce said her husband couldn’t get out because he is sick. He managed to get out and both are staying at an extended stay about 10 miles away.

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“I walked five hours to be here because my car broke down,” Pierce said. She also said she’s unemployed and broke.

Smith created a GoFundMe account to help the 20 residents and two children displaced by the fire.

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“So that we can help pay for an extension of their hotel so that we can help pay for a storage unit that they can’t afford to take all of their belongings that were salvaged from the fire and have a place for those belongings to go to help them with food assistance,” Smith said.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

Cox Media Group