Fast-moving apartment fire kills 2 dogs, displaces dozens in College Park

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. - A fire gutted a College Park apartment building on Thursday afternoon, killing two dogs and displacing dozens.

Emergency crews were called out around 3 p.m. to the St. James Place Apartments located in the 5800 block of Riverdale Road in College Park.

Crews battling apartment fire in College Park on March 23, 2023 (Clayton County Police Department).

Firefighters found heavy smoke and flames on the building when they arrived. They spent the evening hitting hot spots after it burned the building down its frame.

"I’m just like, what’s going on?" recalled Brea Parker. "I’m like, ‘I smell smoke…and fire."

Parker initially thought her space heater was malfunctioning.

"I turned my heater off, thinking it was me," Parker said.

She then went outside to see what should have been a sunny afternoon was actually dark.

"And it’s pitch black, you can’t see nothing," she said. "The fire was so hot to the point it melted the back of the other apartments."

"It happened so fast, there was literally smoke everywhere," said Pleasure Delk.

The flames raced through the building while Delk was visiting friend.

 "It was real scary because it happened so fast. We didn’t know what was going on," Delk said.

He tried to run back in to get his stuff, but the situation had already gotten to dangerous.

"I started panicking," Delk said.

Crews battling apartment fire in College Park on March 23, 2023 (Clayton County Police Department).

Both Delk and his friend made it out safely. His son was not home at the time.

Delk says they recently lost a child and lost any keepsake they had of the child.

"She had a little memory book with all that stuff and she lost all that, she can’t get that back," Delk said. 

Police say two dogs died in the fire.

It was not clear if anyone was injured

Clayton County Fire has not released any information regarding the fire.