Southside Fire/EMS and Garden City Fire Rescue crews worked Sunday afternoon to contain a blaze at a Rainbow Drive apartment.
Firefighters were called to the apartment just before 3 p.m. The fire in the upstairs unit may have been started by a child, said Hugh Futrell, Southside Fire assistant chief of operations.
“I spoke to the young lady that lives there ... and according to her, her son was playing in the bedroom, apparently he had something ignitable, and she smelled something, the smoke alarm was going off, and when she got to the bedroom, it was coming out and the whole bedroom was involved in the fire,” Futrell said. “So she immediately left the building and started asking for others to leave the other apartments.”
The fire managed to spread across an exterior hallway of the eight-unit building before it was fully contained. Firefighters were putting water smoldering parts of the structure and ventilating the rooftop and some walls to ensure the fire spread no further.
Futrell said he was not aware of any injuries, and that he was not yet sure how many residents would be displaced
At least half the building was severely damaged, Futrell said. The ground-level apartment beneath the unit where the blaze began was damaged from water used to extinguish the fire, he said.
“Just a caution to all you parents: Keep an eye on your kids,” Futrell said. “They like to have fun, and unfortunately, sometimes they play with fire.”
—Dash Coleman