Fire at International Residence Apartment 12/20/2012

We got an automated call about 4 am saying that there was a fire at International Residence Apartments in Austin and to evacuate if we need to. Well, it is close, but was far enough away from our neighborhood and the winds, although high are blowing away from us.

[@a4yster]

I was sleeping in my studio facing the creek, had my earplugs in, heard nothing, woke up, had my breakfast, dressed up, got into my car, and realized, that I could have easily burned to death that night.

[@antoniofigueroa464]

i used to live in the part that burned down

[@marthanogal1500]

SAME. My building was right next to the one that started the fire. My sister woke me up and we saw out our window, the fire department busting out the windows, chopping at the walls. Suddenly, we see a flicker of flame at the top of the building, then *whoosh!* the wind picked up and fed the flame which ignited into a major flame on the roof of that building. I ran to go wake up my roommate and we had to grab the pets, whatever we could carry in our purses and bags, and we ran like hell. Our apartment temperature went from a cold 52 degrees (because we didn't have the heat on) to 92 degrees in less than two minutes. Our outside patio balcony was already on fire. We had two minutes to get the hell out. Once we were running down the walkway, we ran towards the parking lot and there were fire hoses everywhere. Then, we got SOAKED. Drenched with water and covered in smoke and ash. We piled into my roommate's car and started to cry. When we realized that we couldn't back out and drive out of the apartment complex, because the fire trucks were in the way, we got back out and started climbing over cars, to get away from the fire. We made it to the leasing office, but it was chaos EVERYWHERE. My other sister, who was working at a hotel front desk that night, came and got us out of that area. She took us to Seton Hospital to get checked for smoke inhalation. It was awful. We lost everything in that fire.