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Families try to recover after east Macon apartment fire

Everyone made it out of the fire safely.

Macon — An east Macon apartment fire left more than 40 people without a home on Friday morning. The fire began somewhere along the backside of the 200 block of apartments at the The Cliffs of Macon complex off of Clinton Road and Gray Highway.

The fire started somewhere around 3 a.m. Jim Purcell lives in the building next door and said hearing sirens is not unusual.

"You hear ambulances and firetrucks go by all the time on Gray Highway," Purcell said. "[I] didn’t think anything of it."

The Macon-Bibb Fire Department fought the flames for much of the day. There were still trucks on hand close to 4.p.m. By then, families had begun to arrive to see what was left of the building.

Audreina Vickers said if it wasn't for her children, she would never would have woken up.

"Me and my husband was sleep and we didn’t know what was going on until our daughter woke us up," Vickers said. "She said, Mama, mama, the neighbor's knocking at the door.' And then my oldest daughter came behind her and said, 'Mom, the building's on fire!'"

Vickers and her family made it out of the building safely and so did everyone else in the building, according to Chief Marvin Riggins of the Macon-Bibb Fire Department. At the time of writing, investigators were still trying to figure out what caused the fire.

The Red Cross arrived to help people with their most immediate needs including funds for food, shelter, and medical replacements. Executive Director Connie Hensler said normally the charity would offer temporary housing, but every one of the 52 people they served had a place to go.

Vickers and her family are staying with relatives. She said they will have to start over.

"We’re just going to have to start from scratch -- furniture, clothes, just living-wise -- just everything."

The apartment building had 20 units in it and as many as 10 fire crews were fighting the fire at one time, according to Riggins.

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