News Reports

Beach Couple Loses Everything in Fire

Virginia Beach, VA - A Virginia Beach couple lost everything in a fire the day before their wedding.
Armando Escalera and his fiance Marisol woke up to find their apartment at Baywatch Pointe filled with smoke and flames Thursday morning.

Escalera said he washed a load of towels from his restaurant job and put them in the dryer early Thursday morning. Then he went upstairs and went to bed.

His fiance, Marisol, and her 15-year-old son were asleep upstairs. Escalera said the next thing he knew he woke up about 2:20 in the morning and smelled smoke. The three of them ran downstairs.

"The upstairs was filled with smoke. Downstairs there was smoke from floor to ceiling. There was about an inch-and-a-half of clear space down near the floor. The laundry room was full of flames. That's when we just ran out."

They ran out with nothing and they do not have renter's insurance. They planned to get married by a Justice of the Peace in a small ceremony in Virginia Beach Friday. Then they'll have a formal wedding in El Paso, Texas in July.

Escalera uttered a single curse word when I asked if Marisol's wedding dress was inside the destroyed apartment. He hadn't thought about it until that moment. Friends said her wedding ring was burned in the fire as well.

Fire crews said the flames only damaged the one unit at 5363 Catina Arch because the fire walls kept the flames from spreading. The fire started in the dryer.