A massive fire in Johnstown's Moxham neighborhood Thursday night wiped out three buildings leaving several families homeless at the start of the holiday season.

"It was as high as the sky," said Patricia Barclay. "It was all engulfed."

Barclay lives just three homes down. She said she first noticed the flames from her back porch and immediately thought the worst.

"I thought, well mine's going to be next," said Barclay. "I went through this once and I didn't want to go through this again."

Officials said the fire appears to have started in a vacant home along the 600 block of Coleman Avenue. It quickly spread to a neighboring vacant duplex and an apartment building .

"We had a great deal of fire coming in," said Johnstown fire department chief Anthony Kovacik. "The proximity to the fire buildings was very narrow but we were able to keep the fire from spreading from one (exposure building) to the other."

Initially it was only a team of six firefighters responding from the city station but once they arrived on scene they called for backup, and plenty of it.

"We called for mutual aid initially just to protect the rest of the city while we were committed to this incident," said Kovacik. "As the need arose through the incident we started to call in other folks to help."

Tanker trucks from departments as far as Seward and Jerome in Somerset County were called in to assist with a water shortage. But it wasn't just the three buildings firemen were worried about, their efforts were also focused on prevention.

"We started to have signs of smoke at the ridges of all these roofs so then our effort was to prevent it from jumping the street and running the block," said Kovacik.

Officials said everyone was able to get out. There were no injuries reported, but 10 people are now left without homes.

"Neighbors come and go but I do know them and feel sorry for them," said Barclay. "I know what they're going through."

A group has already come forward to help the families devastated by the fire. They call themselves Second Chance Fire Recovery of Cambria County. They've been reaching out through their Facebook page to gather donations of food, clothing and money for the 10 people authorities say lived inside the leveled apartment building.

The group's founder said she's helped several families in the past because she knows what they're going through.

"I know what it's like to go through a fire and I know how hard it is to recover from it," said Bonnie Foust. "It's just something that I think should be done. So we just took it upon ourselves to start it and see what we could get done."

The group plans to set up a bank account for the families. They're also looking to hold a basket raffle to raise money.

To make a donation, or for more information, call 814-535-8524 or look them up on their Facebook page, Second Chance Rire Recovery of Cambria County.