Firefighters were still on scene late Friday night after battling a blaze since the early afternoon at Whispering Woods Apartments, 780 U.S. 61 North. Potentially all units in an eight-unit apartment building were destroyed by the fire.

Kendra Carson said she and her three-year-old were asleep in her apartment, 12H, when she heard her sister’s 6-month-old infant begin coughing.

“I woke up, and my house was already smoky also,” she said. “The first thing I did was grab those two and get them outside, then I went to make sure it wasn’t my apartment that was on fire.”

Carson said her apartment was fine aside from the smoke, and she noticed one of the first-floor units in building 12 seemed to be the source of the smoke so she called 911 around 12:30 p.m.

“I’m the first one who smelled the smoke, so I called for the maintenance men,” she said. “They kicked down her door and tried to put it out with the fire extinguishers, but it was already out of control.”

Carson said her apartment later caught fire, and she thinks all eight apartments were affected.

Whispering Woods property manager Miranda Stewart said the fire is thought to have started in the kitchen of apartment 12C.

“She called us to let us know the lights were out, and we went in to flip the breaker, and I think she maybe left something on the stove and it ignited,” she said. “But we won’t know for sure until they’re finished.”

Of the eight units in building 12, several were vacant, Stewart said.

Renee Pickering said her daughter Whitney Hart lived in the unit where the fire is thought to have started.

“My baby just lost all of her and her four kids’ stuff,” she said. “She hasn’t even been staying here because of the electrical problems.”

Across-the-breezeway neighbor Barbara Davis said the fire was devastating.

“I’m a single parent with three kids,” she said. “I work part time, and I just paid my rent yesterday trying to make it. It’s hard.”

Davis, of apartment 12D, said all of her children’s clothes, computers and televisions would likely be destroyed.

Stewart said once she learned of the fire she called the American Red Cross, the Salvation Army and FEMA to try to get her tenants some sort of assistance.

As of 9 p.m. Friday night, firefighters were still on scene, and a representative from the Vicksburg Fire Department said information was not yet available.

The fire happened less than a week since The Vicksburg Post reported Vicksburg building officials had condemned 37 units at the apartment.