At the Regency Club's Building 12 on New Prospect Road, burnt rubble spilled from five gutted apartments. Jackson Police Capt. David Newman said the fire spread through at least six of the 12 units while the rest received smoke and water damage.

Many of the residents complained about the response time, with several insisting it took the first firetruck 35 to 40 minutes to arrive. Charles Smith, chief of Jackson's Fire Company 1 -- one of six companies to respond -- said the first truck was there 12 minutes after the Ocean County 911 dispatcher called him at 1:40 p.m. The fire was under control about an hour later, Newman said.

"Seconds seem like minutes when you're seeing your house burning down," Smith said.

He added that the company comprises volunteers who were responding from different places.

Still, the delay didn't sit well with tenants.

"Every time we heard a siren we're thinking, 'Oh good, a firetruck finally.' But it was just another police or EMT car," said Tony Zane, 48, whose upstairs apartment stared windowless and charred from the front of the building.

Residents also said no alarms sounded to alert them of a fire, forcing them instead to rely on door pounding and word-of-mouth.

Each Regency Club building, along with having a smoke detector in the apartments, has a fire bell on the front exterior. Property manager Karen Palmer said the bell at Building 12 should have gone off. Chief Smith said it was not ringing when he arrived.

"I was in my apartment for 20 minutes before I even knew there was a fire," said Alyse Honey, 27, who about to take a nap at the time. "If I hadn't heard people screaming outside, I might've gone to sleep."

Lauren Smith, 21, was car shopping with her mom when a friend called to say her building was on fire. She lost her two cats in the blaze. Maria ""Ruby'' Aure, 17, was in the shower when her visiting friend Amanda Dorn, 15, came into the bathroom screaming that they had to get out. Aure was able to put on a bathrobe before leaving.

"When I opened the door it was all black" with smoke, Aure said later, dressed in a camouflage dress borrowed from a friend's sister.

Newman said the fire was called in as a result of a cooking incident on a stove in the second-story Apartment 12L. The Ocean County Fire Marshal's Office is investigating. All occupants had evacuated the building themselves, he said.

Lenny Winter, a Disaster Assessment Team member for the America Red Cross Jersey Coast Chapter, said the agency is providing the misplaced tenants with money for clothes and a stay of up to three nights in a hotel.

Before flames destroyed his apartment, Zane was able to salvage only his wallet, cell phone and a sense of humor.

"I was planning to move to Edison to be closer to work," the electronics technician said, standing on the curb, his shirt stained with sweat. "This will make packing a lot easier."