ANAHEIM – As word spread Saturday that a 17-year-old boy had died in a predawn apartment fire, friends of the teen began arriving at the apartment complex in disbelief.

“I can’t talk right now. I am really shocked,” said Alex Andrade, 17, who described himself as a good friend of Justin Jewell, 17, the youth found dead in a bedroom on the second floor of the building according to the Orange County Coroner.

“He was a very good friend,” Andrade said. “He had a lot of friends. No one disliked him. He never had any enemies. He liked to skateboard and hang out. There’s no reason for him to die. He never did anything wrong.”

Several others who stood outside the two-story, eight-unit building Saturday afternoon declined to speak.

Anaheim police Lt. Bob Dunn said firefighters were called to the complex in the 2100 block of East Westport Drive about 4:25 a.m. The size of the fire prompted a second alarm, but Dunn said firefighters had it out in about 15 minutes.

Dunn said 20 people were safely evacuated from the building. Investigators are working to determine the cause of the fire, which caused about $325,000 in damage, Dunn said.

Of the 20 residents who were displaced, 17 found places to go, Dunn said. The remaining three received help from the Red Cross, he said.

Danny Budd, who lived in the unit beneath the apartment that burned, said his father awakened him and told him to get out.

“I went outside and the flames were bigger than the tree,” Budd said, pointing to a tall tree. “It was full-on. We just went up and told everyone to wake up and get out … like, kind of in a panic.”

Budd, 25, said he went all the way to the the last door along the upstairs balcony but was turned back by the fire. “I didn’t know who was in there,” he said.

Asked about the teen who died, Budd said he would see him around the complex with skateboard friends. “I would just say hi,” Budd said. He described Jewell as “a quiet, shy, timid, ‘he-listened-first’ kind of person – instead of talking. Cool, calm, collected.”

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