Mother Of Two Loses Home To Fire

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FORT WORTH (CBSDFW.COM) - Six months after escaping homelessness, Amarisa Maturo and her two boys have lost their home again – this time to a fire.

Maturo was with her mother and two sons at the Ambassador Apartments in south Fort Worth, when flames shot through their window.

"We had to run this way towards the balcony. And I… They started screaming for people. I didn't know what else to do. I was trying to get my kids off the balcony. I knew I couldn't throw them down there. It was concrete," said the mother through tears.

Maturo said she dangled her sons off the ledge, handing them off to a maintenance man, who helped her and her mother down as well.

"A man was helping us get down. We almost died but we didn't. We made it," said Jonathan Maturo, 6. "I was just real scared. I was just real scared."

Danny McGrew said the fire started in his apartment next door. He said he turned on the stove and a flame shot out.

"I was just in shock because I've never seen a fire move like that. It was like someone poured gas or something –whoowhoo – it was just shooting up . I don't know. I just ran," he said.

Flames destroyed his apartment and 7 others, displacing 18 people.

"You can all the way through my whole house. Everything is just gone from the next door neighbor to downstairs. It's all gone," said McGrew.

Maturo said she and her family were living in a shelter until April, when her church helped her move into the apartments.
"We were doing really good," she said.

Now she's afraid she's once again starting from scratch.

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