WEST CHESTER TWP. — Early Tuesday morning, Kim Gibson heard a loud banging on her door and someone shouting to get out.

        She quickly learned her apartment building at Woodbridge on the Lake was burning.

In a burned-out hallway in the Woodbridge on the Lake apartments complex, West Chester Township Assistant Fire Chief Tony Goller (left) looks over damage as clean-up begins. (Michael Snyder photo) | ZOOM |

        “Once you got in the hallway, you could smell the smoke and hear the alarm,” she said. “You could see the fire once you got out.”

        Ms. Gibson is one of at least 30 people displaced by a large blaze at the eight-building apartment complex off Cincinnati-Dayton Road near Interstate 75. The fire destroyed two apartments and damaged 14 others, fire officials said. All but one of the units were occupied.

        There were no injuries.

        Damage was estimated at $300,000, Assistant Fire Chief Tony Goller said.

        “People were still coming out as the first engine arrived,” he said. “The alarm system worked. Everybody heard it.”

        The cause of the blaze was under investigation.

        Firefighters responded just before 2 a.m. and found flames coming through the roof of one building, the assistant chief said. The blaze started in a bedroom in an apartment on the third floor. Crews were able to contain the fire to one section of the building.

        Tuesday afternoon victims poured into Reach Out Lakota, a West Chester food pantry, for food, clothing and cleaning supplies. The Red Cross also was assisting.

        About 50 firefighters from more than a half-dozen departments in Butler and Hamilton counties responded to the fire. The blaze was brought under control in about 75 minutes, but crews remained at the complex through the morning.

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