More than a dozen residents of the Victorian Courtyard Apartments on Fir Road evacuated their building after a resident spotted smoke in her room.

Carthage Fire Chief John Cooper said electrical wires got hot in the walls of one apartment building at about 5 p.m. Monday causing fire damage to two apartments, heavy smoke damage to two more apartments and lighter smoke damage to four more apartments.

Cooper said approximately a dozen people had to find a different place to stay at least over night and the American Red Cross was called in to help.

"If this had happened in the middle of the night it would have been worse," Cooper said. "If it had been left alone for another 30 minutes it would have broken out of the walls. The wires melted a plastic water pipe and water sprayed in the walls slowing the fire down a bit."

Residents described a frantic several minutes as they started seeing smoke in one room at the north end of the building.

"I was watching my kid when all of a sudden I saw fire coming from a vent," said resident Dena Owen as she waited with dozens of other people on the lawn of the apartments. "I was on the balcony and I could see fire coming from the vents on the side of the building. I yelled downstairs to the woman in the apartment below and said 'Ma'am, your apartment is on fire,' then I left."

Dena Owen called her husband Curtis Owen who saw the fire trucks coming as he rushed home.

Donna Gardner, another resident, said she also noticed smoke in her apartment and started knocking on doors to alert people in the building.

"I just moved in here about two months ago," Gardner said. "I'm thinking about all my stuff, the furniture was not new, but it was new to me."

Donna Carnes, was getting ready for work and her niece, Megan Smith, was in the apartment straightening her hair when Carnes smelled something different.

"I was in the bathtub and at first I thought I was smelling my niece's straightener, then we saw the smoke," Carnes said. "I sent my daughter and my niece outside with the dog and I got dressed and got our cat. She was scared and hiding under the bed. She knew something was wrong."

JJ Travis, emergency services director for the Southwest Missouri Chapter of the American Red Cross, said the Red Cross assisted five families with food, clothing and places to stay.

"The two families whose apartments were destroyed we assisted with food and clothing," Travis said. "They had places to stay. Two families from apartments that had less damage could not return to those apartments so we provided them with shelter."

There were a total of eight affected apartments and five families.