More than 12 East Orange residents must spend Christmas away from home after a fire practically gutted their building Sunday.

East Orange Fire Department representatives say the fire broke out in the Springville Avenue building just before 10 a.m. According to fire officials, four families who lived above the first-floor Laundromat, where the fire began, were left homeless. One of the victims, a father of three, says his family lost everything it owned. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Flames were so intense that fire officials say the Newark Fire Department came to assist the East Orange Fire Department. Paramedics treated one firefighter for a leg injury, but all others escaped without injury.