More Than a Dozen Displaced by Fire at Santee Apartment Complex

More than a dozen residents were displaced from their homes after a fire broke out in an apartment unit in Santee.

Santee Fire Department Crews were called to a two-story, multi-building complex on the 10400 block of Mast Boulevard at around 6:45 p.m.

Flames and heavy smoke were pouring out of a unit when firefighters arrived on scene Thursday night.

Neighbors told NBC 7 that two brothers lived in upstairs and downstairs units that were destroyed by flames. A witness had to hold one of the victims back to keep him from trying to run back inside.

Evan Watson said he was lucky that a neighbor came banging on his door to wake him up before the flames advanced.

"For us, we were just taking a nap, it was just a regular nap day," Watson said. "We just got the bang on the door, 'Hey get out of your place!' and we weren't sure what was going on, we were kind of disoriented. We came out and we were like okay, we gotta go. We just picked up the first thing we saw, the dog, and left."

Another man was taken to the hospital with burn and smoke inhalation injuries after he tried unsuccessfully to rescue two of his dogs, according to neighbors.