A family living without electricity was in danger when a lighted candle started a fire in their Mountain View apartment according to a friend.
A neighbor told NBC 7 San Diego he could see curtains on fire as flames ripped through the apartment on Oceanview Boulevard just after midnight Wednesday.
“Crazy, I’ll put it that way. Crazy,” said Fred Bonner. “It was blazed everywhere.”
Bonner said the family told him they were using a lighted candle because they don't have electricity and that they awoke to smoke and the curtains completely ablaze.
The fire quickly spread from the family’s apartment to an adjacent apartment upstairs and then into the check-cashing business on the first floor.
Three people were sleeping inside and escaped injury along with their two pets. The person living in the second apartment was not home at the time of the fire.
Witnesses say firefighters were at the building within minutes and opened up a section of the roof to battle the fire.
The San Diego chapter of the American Red Cross helped the family find a place to stay for the night.
Investigators have not released an official cause of the fire.