SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – “The furniture we can buy it you know but my photos is what I worry about,” Carlos Loya said.
Carlos Loya is one of 10 neighbors displaced from a North Beach fire that broke out Friday morning near Powell and Vandewater Streets.
One person was sent to the hospital and another resident’s dog died from the fire.
Many of these neighbors are now staying in a nearby hotel at a loss for where to go next.
The building is now boarded up and no longer livable.
Neighbors say they left the fire with nothing but the shirts on their back.
“Came back and I’m homeless. Didn’t get my wallet. Didn’t get my keys. Saw my car was just a charcoal brick and I have nothing, but the shirt on my back,” Albert Patane said.
While Albert Patane lost everything in this North Beach blaze Friday morning, he says he’s thankful to be alive.
Crews rushed him to the hospital from smoke inhalation but he was released the next day and returned home to this.
The fire displaced 10 people at this 113-year-old Powell Street apartment building.
Now it’s boarded up on Monday, as neighbors reminisce on priceless items lost.
“Really important things that I had is I had big photos with Mohammad Ali and Jack Dempsey and Joe French,” Loya said.
Carlos Loya is a former professional boxer and former coach in the city.
In addition to losing captured memories with boxing legends, he also lost invaluable photos with the kids he trained.
“I feel real bad. Real depressed. Can’t sleep but I’ll be alright. They’re material things,” Loya said.
Over the 30 plus years Loya’s lived here with his wife Mayra. He says he’s met great neighbors that became more like family.
People like Juan Salas who went knocking door to door to wake his neighbors and get them out safely.
“It was very very fast. I don’t think it was 5 minutes really before the fire and the whole side of the building being completely ablaze,” Salas said.
Salas started a GoFundMe to help his neighbors Albert, Carlos and Mayra find a new home.
“We just want to make sure they can go on with their lives because they deserve it. They’re all hardworking, very nice, loving people and we just want them to be okay,” Salas said.
While the cause of this fire is still under investigation.
Residents believe it started by an explosion from another neighbor’s car parked underneath the building.
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