OVID, N.Y. – A fire that burned down an entire block in the village of Ovid overnight probably started from a power charger, according to the fire chief and Seneca County sheriff.

“She then gathered her children and fled the apartment,” said Sheriff Timothy J. Thompson, Jr., Seneca County Sheriff, about the woman who lived in one of the Main Street apartments where the fire originated.

She told them she came home Tuesday night and saw the charger smoking.

The structure of the buildings, which date back to the 1800s, helped the fire spread.

“The Ovid Big M and the apartments above where the fire originated, that entire building has a common attic,” said Ovid Fire Chief Timothy Westlake.

Chief Westlake said the cold hurt their water supply which also contributed to the spread of the fire.

“There were flames shooting out of the window of the apartment, like 10 to 15 feet out of the window and I knew, I was like ‘Oh no! This is bad,'” said Justin Carmona, an Ovid resident whose family owned the Italian Kitchen restaurant that burned down.

Carmona said, “It’s something we love. It’s a business we’ve had for a while. We worked really hard.”

Carmona says he joined the fire department after a block fire in Ovid 11 years ago. In that 2014 fire, an 11-year-old boy was charged with arson. Among the businesses burned was the Big M grocery store.

Anthony DeMarco from Ovid said, “The people that live here, we depend on this kind of stuff every day. We depend on this town and when stuff gets burned down like this it can be a lot.”

“I think everybody feels it. It’s a hit to the town,” said Carmona.

The fire is still burning and investigators have to wait for it to go out completely before they can get in to investigate more closely. Six businesses and 20 apartments were lost. The Red Cross is helping out.

The only injuries were a firefighter who had gloves frozen to his fingers and another who had a shirt frozen to his chest.

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