South Nashville apartment burns 4 times in 5 years

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - For the fourth time in five years a fire destroyed an apartment building in the same South Nashville complex on Sunday night.

The fire began around 10:15 p.m. on Sunday night at the Hickory Creek Apartments off Vultee Boulevard.

“I’m sitting on my laptop and I’m starting to hear a popping, cracking noise,” he said. “I go up and see what it was, see smoke everywhere, open my front door, see smoke all outside.”

Bloodsow said he grabbed his dog Buster and ran to his car. He went back up to grab his wallet and keys when he said the smoke went from bad to worse.

“I jumped off the balcony the second time I went up because it was foggy. It was too dark,” he said.

Bloodsow said this isn’t the first time he saw a fire break out at Hickory Creek. In fact, Nashville Fire responded to three others in 2019, 2020 and 2022.

“I will say it surprised me because it happened before, I thought things would be under better precautions or better handled,” he said.

Nidia Ruiz lives next to Bloodsow. All she has are the clothes she’s wearing, a blanket and a scrape on her knee from the escape.

“I hear yelling outside my door,” she said. “So, I go to see, and I see through the little hole I the door and it was completely black.”

Ruiz said she did what she could to warn neighbors.

“I don’t remember exactly,” she said. “We run like crazies and go on out and I knock on doors to people because the people don’t know.”

While some families were able to salvage a suitcase of stuff, others are left with their cars and the clothes on their back.

“Got to go to work today, got to go to school tomorrow,” Bloodsow said. “Got to get a living arrangement fixed so we can get back on task with everything I got going.”

Nashville Fire Department is still investigating the cause. The American Red Cross has set up shelters for those displaced at the Nashville Fairgrounds.

Copyright 2023 WSMV. All rights reserved.