PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Pittsburgh firefighters battled a fast-moving fire that destroyed an apartment building, leaving adults and children homeless.

The fire broke out at a four-unit apartment building at 37 Mount Oliver Street in the South Side Slopes around 11:30 a.m. Monday.

“And I lost everything!” Lory Owens, a fire victim, said.

She has lived in one of the six units for years. Her husband tried to put the fire out.

“I [gave] him the fire extinguisher to go down there to put the fire out and it was blazing and there was nothing he could do,” Owens told KDKA-TV.

The fire reached five alarms in part because of how quickly it spread.

“The initial arriving fire company had heavy fire showing on arrival and requested a second alarm within the first two minutes of the incident,” Pittsburgh Fire Assistant Chief Tom Cook said. “And it escalated from there very rapidly because of the headway the fire had on us.”

The landlord says the tenant in the apartment where the fire apparently started was scheduled to be evicted Tuesday morning.

The Red Cross is assisting 10 adults and seven children with shelter.

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