A Logan family who was left homeless after their apartment building burned in December has found a new dwelling.

James Hielema, one of 20 people left without a place to live after the Dingess Street apartment fire on Dec. 7, said he and members of his family have found a new home.

“We found a new apartment. It’s more expensive, but you know, we have to have a place to live,” Hielema said last week.

Hielema and his family lost everything they owned in the fire, members of the family said.

“We’re doing okay,” Hielema said.

The cause of the fire is still undetermined. The State Fire Marshal’s office investigated the fire and a report to The Logan Banner said it started in a ground-floor apartment when a tenant placed a can of spray paint into a microwave.

State Assistant Fire Marshal Jason Baltic was checking the microwave on the morning of Dec. 8.

Hielema was crucial in getting several of the apartment’s residents out during the fire. One tenant called Hielema a hero for helping to get everyone out alive.

Logan Fire Chief Scott Beckett said in an earlier interview that the fire call came into the Logan County 911 office on Dec. 7 at 6 p.m. on Sunday and his firemen battled the blaze for 10 hours. On Dec. 8, around 1 p.m., crews were back on the scene extinguishing a hot spot in the rubble of the apartment.

Beckett said the fire also damaged the West Virginia Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Labor Federal Black Lung offices nearby and caused all occupants of a nearby apartment building to be evacuated and moved to a Red Cross shelter.

"It was bad. The whole building is gone," Beckett said. "We had two adjacent structures less than a foot apart from the apartment building and we were able to keep the fire out of both of those. We had several large explosions inside the apartment building and we're assuming they were using 20-pound propane tanks for heat. The explosions were large and instituted the collapse of the building and we had to pull everybody out.

"We had two of the occupants who were hospitalized. One was transferred to another hospital for burns and it was in his apartment where the fire started. One occupant was treated and released."