KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – At 5:30 this morning, the Kansas City Fire Department responded to a fire at a 4-story apartment at 300 N. Gladstone Blvd. and Mersington Ave. near the Pendleton Heights neighborhood.
The services reported heavy fire and smoke from the apartment on the first floor where the fire broke out.
Many people were trapped in thick, black smoke.
Five residents were rescued, one from the fourth floor and four others from the second and third floors.
Don Robertson lives on the third floor of the apartment building and described waking up to a chaotic scene. “I woke up to someone shouting ‘burn, shoot, shoot, run,’” Robertson said. “I just grabbed what I could and ran out of the apartment, which was full of smoke. It was just a wall of smoke and I couldn’t see where I was going.
Four patients were taken to a nearby hospital for smoke inhalation.
The Red Cross responded to the scene to help 13 adults and three children displaced by the fire.
In total, multiple emergency vehicles responded to the scene, including at least four pump trucks, three ladder rescue teams and several ambulances.
The cause of the fire is an electric strip heater; however, due to the extensive damage, investigators were unable to determine whether the cause was an electrical failure of the heater or whether the cause was radiant heat onto flammable objects.
5 Rescued in KC, Missouri. Apartment fire on Gladstone Ave.(KCFD)
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