Photo by Doug Koontz Crews start the process of covering the opening in the roof of the burned-out Elmwood Terrace apartment complex.

The fire, which started shortly after 11 p.m. Wednesday, left 24 units in Elmwood Terrace buildings S and T condemned.

The State Fire Marshal's office said the fire was caused by improperly discarded smoking materials, and ruled it an accident.

David Franklin had fallen asleep watching a basketball game when his wife started yelling there was a fire.

"I thought she was joking," he said.

He got out with his wife and teenage daughters, but worried that his family had lost nearly everything. Still, he said he was glad no one was injured.

Evelyn Figueroa woke up to the fire alarm. When she looked out her window, fire trucks had already arrived. Her 2-year-old son was still asleep.

"I just took my baby and left," she said.

When firefighters allowed her into her home about 4 a.m., she was able to find three of her son's outfits. Everything else was ruined, she said.

Elmwood Terrace's management put the displaced residents up in a hotel for the night and planned to do so again Thursday night.

The company is taking this one day at a time, and hadn't decided whether it would pay for additional hotel nights beyond Thursday, said Linda Pendola, regional manager for Home Properties, Elmwood Terrace's parent company.

Thursday afternoon, residents who'd been forced out by the fire were returning to the complex's clubhouse to figure out what to do next.

The management company is trying to place residents who lost their homes in other apartments in the complex, Pendola said.

Tony Jacobs, who lived on the first floor of building S, said his apartment's ceiling collapsed from water damage, and he'd been told it would be two to three weeks before he could get back in.

The complex's management had offered him and his girlfriend, India Jones, another, more expensive apartment, but Jacobs said he wasn't sure he could afford it.

Pendola declined to discuss whether residents may have to pay more for the apartments they relocate to, and only said the company was trying to place residents in similar units.

Jacobs said everything they had in the apartment was a loss, and he didn't have renter's insurance to pay for it.

"You've got an apartment there with nothing in it, what're you going to do?" Jacobs said. "When you've got to furnish it, that $25 (for insurance) is a lot of money."

Allison Parker and Dan Grisso Jr., who live in the corner of building T farthest from the fire, said they'd been told they might get back into their apartment as soon as Saturday.

"We got lucky," Parker said.

It's not right that the people who are being forced to move should see their rent go up, Parker said.

Under Maryland law, if a fire renders a rental property uninhabitable, the lease terminates, said Katherine Jones, an attorney with Maryland Legal Aid's Frederick office. The renter no longer has to pay rent, while the landlord probably wouldn't have any liability for moving costs or personal property damage.

The actual lease could set different terms, but in the absence of anything more specific, that's the basic standard, she said.

The Frederick County Chapter of the American Red Cross will be providing aid, including short-term shelter, food, immediate clothing needs and medications to the fire's victims, said Nick Geier, the chapter's interim executive director.