By Scott McDonnell – WSHM-TV

The family that lived in the unit where the fire started at Meadowbrook Apartments in Northampton told us how it happened, and the fire chief explained why it grew out of control.

Residents of the Meadowbrook Apartments in Northampton displaced by Monday’s fire are pretty much left with nothing. They’re now focusing on the simple things, getting clothes and finding a place to sleep Tuesday night.

“When I walked out the door and saw the flames I just ran,” said resident Leslie Lapoint

The fire that burned 21 people out of their homes started in Leslie La Point’s apartment. Her son Josh says a friend of family tossed a cigarette into a wastebasket.

“The fire started in my sister’s room, her boyfriend put an ash tray with a couple of cigarettes”

Someone tried to fight it with a fire extinguisher, but the flames spread quickly from their second floor apartment to the entire three- story building.

By the time Northampton firefighters arrived, the fire had grown out of control, because there were no sprinklers to stop it.

“The thing that would have controlled the fire better than anything else would have been on individual sprinkler head in the apartment of origin,” said Fire Chief Brian Duggan.

If this complex was built recently, it’s possible only one apartment would have been damaged, and not a dozen.

But the Meadowbrook apartments, built back in 1973, were not required by law to have sprinklers installed.

For Chyrstal and Miguel Candelaria, who lived directly above the apartment where the fire started, a legal loophole cost them everything they own.

“Wedding dresses, couches, allot of memories, computers filled with memories from like ten years, I had a hard drive filled our pictures filled with the child’s birthdays, coats, we lost everything.”

Digital photo albums are now ashes. Pictures of long lost family members, the only remaining portraits of mothers, fathers, grandparents as memories fade away

“Those” things were all that was left to remind them.”

For such a Massive amount of destruction, pain and loss, it makes the small, thoughtless cause of the fire more difficult to swallow.

“We lost everything, we don’t even have an apartment”, said Josh Lapoint

There’s no ordinance on the books in Northampton that requires property owners to add fire sprinklers, but as a renter, it’s something you may want to look for.

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