14 Families Are Left With Nothing After A Sunday Evening Apartment Fire In Vernon

Fire investigators are learning more about what could have caused yesterday's apartment complex fire in Vernon that left 14 families without a home.

Vernon firefighters, along with those from Chillicothe and Electra worked all night to put out those flames.

Crews believe it started in the kitchen of one of the downstairs apartments but they are still investigating.

And today many of the residents spent the day still in shock figuring out how to rebuild what they've lost.

It was a long night for Vernon firefighters.

With help from crews in Electra and Chillicothe they battled this blaze at the Augustan apartment complex.

Three buildings were evacuated but only one went up in flames.

But, the red cross says one building is leaving an impact.

This is really big for us. To lose an entire apartment complex. That displaces one whole building. If you lose one you can't go and stay with a neighbor but this gets us into a sheltering operations," said Katrina Farmer, from North Central Texas Red Cross.

An operation which had countless volunteers at Calvary Baptist Church collecting anything they could to help the 14 families now homeless.

Folks from the community stacked tables high with clothing, toiletries, and food, all in an effort to give the families a place to start which one resident says is difficult to see.

"It's hard to know what to do. It's just I don't know, you just pick a spot, kind of like this, you just pick a spot and see what you can find see what you can salvage," said Aaron Shaw one of the residents.

One of the few things Shaw could salvage was his first born son's bed.

Fire crews helped saw a window to get the crib out of the debris.

And though he doesn't have much he says there's still one thing he does have; his faith.

"When you lose everything I guess that's all you can do is pray and just pray and hope that everything get's better," he said.

Better enough to move forward as they load the little that is left.

Knowing it's not the things that matter but the people that they love.

Rolling Plains Management, Salvation Army and even Catholic Charities located in Dallas are providing aid for the family.

And though there has been an outcry of support from the community volunteers say the families could still use monetary donations.

To do that all you have to do is send a check in to the Calvary Baptist Church at 2101 Yucca Lane in Vernon.

In the memo write Augustan fire.