A fire erupted this morning in a Park Avenue apartment destroying the structure and displacing a family of five.

Melvin Hall, 37, and his fiancee  Latasha Woumans, 32, said they heard a loud noise from the vacant apartment below, then soon spotted smoke infiltrating their apartment. They rushed down a flight of steps, fighting through heavy smoke.

After getting safely outside, all they could do was watch as the fire ripped through 323 Park Ave. and destroyed all their belongings.

"I don't even feel like a human being. I lost everything. I can't provide for my family," Hall later said, seeking warmth inside a Park Avenue market while meeting with Red Cross officials.

The couple said they have a 4-month-old daughter who was staying with Hall's mother in Wilkes-Barre the past several days because of a lingering gas smell in the home.

Hall said the fire seems suspicious because, after detecting the gas odor on Monday, they called UGI Natural Gas officials to investigate. He said an employee for the company inspected the whole two-unit property with a meter, but didn't detect any natural gas. Hall said the employee believed the gas smell was from automotive gas. Hall said he reported the smell to his landlord, but isn't sure if anything was done.

The couple said police and fire officials told them a first-floor door to a vacant apartment had been found busted open upon arrival, a claim police and fire officials declined to confirm.

Woumans said after hearing the loud bang this morning around 9:30 a.m., she looked outside and saw someone in a hooded sweatshirt running away from the property. She said she didn't think anything of it until noticing the smoke in her apartment.

Wilkes-Barre Fire Chief Jay Delaney said it was too early to speculate on what caused the devastating blaze, but noted they will investigate the claims by the couple.

A city fire inspector is investigating the cause, he said.

Delaney said fire crews attempted to fight the fire from the inside, but the blaze got too intense and fire crews switched to a "defense mode" by battling the blaze from the outside.

"Conditions got too bad. We pulled the firefighters out," he said. "There was too much fire."Hall, Woumans, their infant daughter, and Woumans' two other daughters, 13 and 15, will be staying at a local hotel provided by the American Red Cross.