West side apartment fire causes displacement of 10+ residents, 4 injuries

INDIANAPOLIS -- An apartment complex fire on the west side of Indianapolis displaced several individuals and caused four injuries early Friday morning.




According to officials from the Wayne Township Fire Department, the department received a call of a fire at an apartment complex in the 5700 block of Port Au Prince St. at around 3:18 a.m. on Friday.




When firefighters arrived at the scene, officials said there was heavy fire showing out the back of one of the apartments. The fire then reportedly made its way into the attic space of the apartment.




"We received multiple reports of entrapment," said Eric Banister, a captain with the Wayne Township Fire Department. "When crews arrived, we believe we had people that may have jumped off the second floor.

"It was a very all-hands fire immediately - this went to two alarms quickly because of the possible entrapment," Banister continued. "Lots of searches were conducted, finding no people inside, so everybody self-evacuated."




Four injuries were reported in total, including two adults and two children. Officials said that one adult and one child were transported and two were released at the scene. Officials did not provide a condition on those who were transported, but Banister said they were talking to people before they left.




Overall, 12 apartments were impacted by the fire, causing the displacement of around 14-16 individuals. Banister said at the scene that the entire unit was going to be impacted by the fire, including the power and utilities being turned off.




But ultimately, Banister said that they are happy that everyone got out safely.








"We haven't talked to any of our local heroes here, but I'm sure there were people going door to door, knocking on doors," he said. "You count on hopefully working smoke detectors - we haven't heard anything to the negative, so we're hoping all that worked out. We're gonna look into that later today with our fire investigators.




"Everybody made it out safely, and with this type of fire, this type of volume before we get here and there's that much fire - that had a pretty significant head start," he continued. "So we're going to look into this fire to see what's going on with it. Unfortunately, people jumping off the second floor of the apartment, that means the egresses weren't available when they walked outside, so we're going to look into that little more closely. But they did make it out and at this time we're just happy everybody made it out and we got the fire under control."




Officials said that there is no indication of what started the fire. No firefighters were injured in the incident.





via: https://fox59.com/indiana-news/west-side-apartment-fire-causes-displacement-of-10-residents-4-injuries/