The Red Cross is helping five Yonkers families with food and temporary shelter after a fire ravaged an apartment building on Buena Vista Avenue early Sunday morning.

Flames razed the multi-family building in a fire that was apparently sparked by illegal fireworks.

"That's what everyone is saying right now," said building owner Dena Alto.

The Yonkers Fire Department has not released an official cause of the blaze that they say started at around 1 a.m.

"We just started running through the building, screaming 'fire!' for everybody to vacate the building," recalled Hector Gonzalez, whose family was inside at the time.

With evidence of spent fireworks all over the ground in front of her building, Alto places the blame firmly on those who shot off the illegal fireworks.

"If it wasn't for that and then, now people are homeless because they chose to do what they shouldn't have done," Alto said.

This is the second apartment building in Yonkers to go up in flames after illegal fireworks were being set off.

As News 12 previously reported, a three-story building on Stanley Avenue was destroyed two weeks ago.

One of the families who lived there lost everything, including their cat and dog.