‘Just part of the process’: Kansas City firefighters detail dangers of vacant building fires
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) - Two apartment fires within three days in Kansas City - the most recent happened on Friday morning, Nov. 15, at Linwood and Wayne, not far from Sun Fresh.
While the building was vacant, firefighters say abandoned structure fires are just as dangerous as those with people inside. It doesn’t matter if a building is vacant or not - responding firefighters treat it as if there are people inside.
Fortunately, this building on the city’s east side was empty as it became fully engulfed in flames. The three-story structure was mostly boarded up and had fending around it. That posed a challenge for crews, allowing the fire to double in size in under two minutes.
Once firefighters conducted an initial sweep of the building, they got out - attacking the fire from outside. No one was hurt, but the fire did jump to a house next door, damaging it.
“We were just in there sleeping this morning and then all of a sudden paramedics came banging on our doors, telling us to get out of the house because the apartment building next door is on fire,” said Alex Hardiman, who was home at the time the fire jumped. “That’s something we’ve been worried about because there’s a lot of homeless people that go in and out of this building.”
“A lot of our vacant structures or abandoned building fies we have will have multiple fires in them before the building is torn down and that’s just part of the process of trying to track down the owners, go through the court process to have them pay to tear it down,” said Kansas City Fire Department Battalion Chief Michael Hopkins. “Obviously, in a case like this, I believe the property owners were available.”
On average, KC Fire fights about 200 vacant structure fires every year - with many of those happening when the temperatures drop. The department says if you are worried about an abandoned building in your neighborhood, to report it to 311.
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