We interviewed residents who were displaced Thursday in a gas fire at Sherri Park Apartments. Read more about the fire here.

Some of the first responders proved to be animal lovers.

Jennifer and Andrew November pleaded with a police officer to get their two turtles from their unit after the fire was out.

“We thought they would laugh at us,” said Jennifer November, who lives in the south end of the building, “because they’re just turtles. But they took it very seriously.”

Sandy Tucker was in her home when she heard a knock on the front door. “I looked out my window and I could see the flames,” she said.

She was watching Patches, a guinea pig, for her daughter, but couldn’t catch him before she fled. Later she begged a firefighter to grab him. “When I saw [the firefighter return with the animal] I started to cry,” she said.

But not everyone was so lucky. "My first concern was my animals," said Rita Sears.

She had to leave her two cats in her unit, and had not yet been escorted to her apartment to get them. "I'm really concerned to see how they're doing," she said, adding, "They do miss me when I'm not there."

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