Family displaced by house fire in Colorado Springs

The Red Cross is helping a family that was displaced by a house fire in Colorado Springs Wednesday.

The fire happened around 11 a.m. at a home at 3920 Half Turn Place, which is in a neighborhood near Academy Boulevard and Austin Bluffs Parkway.

The Colorado Springs Fire Department said damage to the home’s upper floor is bad enough that the family of 10 who lives in the home will have to stay in temporary housing.

Rick Camacho said he, two teens and a child were in the home and escaped safely and that the other residents were at school or out of town. Camacho believes he knows what started the fire.

“One of the sockets in the wall,” he said. “It kept shorting out and the computer kept turning on, and it would turn itself back on, like the socket would stop working. But I really don’t know. I wasn’t up there. There was nobody up there, so I don’t know how else it could have started.”

Neighbors who saw the fire said they were concerned about the family’s safety and are relieved that no one was hurt.

“I actually saw them standing outside their home, watching their home being on fire,” said neighbor Alena Salazar. “I actually asked them if that was their house and they said (it was).”

Bryan Cozens, a next-door neighbor, said he was driving home when he saw a fire truck heading in the same direction.

“I hooked up my (garden) hose to my house in case any embers came over, so my house wouldn’t catch on fire,” he said.

The official cause of the fire remains under investigation by the Fire Department.