The fire broke out inside the rear apartment of a home on Garfield Avenue in Jersey City around 9 a.m. and quickly spread from the first floor throughout the home and to the building next door.
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Smoke and flames could be seen shooting from the roof of the building. The roofs of both buildings collapsed and it took firefighters two hours to get the blaze under control.
"All the residents, as far as we know, got out of the building, we're doing interviews right now with our arson investigation team," Jersey City Fire Department Chief Steven McGill said.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear, but investigators later learned that the fire started in an apartment that was due to be vacated Wednesday.
"We're going to go in there to start our investigation to see what the cause was," McGill said.
Two firefighters were hospitalized, mostly for exhaustion, and are expected to survive.
Residents feared they lost everything.
"I'm trying to figure out if everything's OK, I don't know yet, victim Steven Charlot said.
Five families were displaced as a result of the fire. Some are staying with relatives and others are being housed by the Red Cross.
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