A two-alarm fire broke out in a North Beach apartment building early New Year's Day, displacing 48 residents, two-thirds of whom only speak Cantonese and many of them low-income. The fire was reported just before 1:30 a.m., after one of the residents found her bathroom on fire. The blaze spread quickly, and residents had to flee with few belongings.

Most of the tenants spent the rest of the night at the nearby Broadway Studios and later moved to the Gene Friend Rec Center on Sixth Street on Saturday. Amyes and Red Cross workers are currently working on finding new homes for the residents.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. The landlord told the Chronicle that the power had gone out late in the afternoon, and a resident might have been using a candle for light. There had been renovation work going on in the building earlier in the day, and residents wonder if the fire was electrical-related. There was no mention of fire detectors in the building.