UPDATE:
Junction City Fire Chief Terry Johnson said Saturday morning when firefighters arrived on the scene of a major apartment building fire at the Bluffs complex they were faced with heavy fire coming out of the building. “With the winds that we had coming through it moved the fire very quickly. We were worried about the exposures, what we call exposures, the other buildings. So the primary was protect those buildings as we were attacking the fire. It moved very fast, went through the roof, unfortunately this type of structure doesn’t have fire brick walls in it, does not have sprinklers in the attic so it progressed quickly on us.”
Johnson confirmed the fire originated on either the second or third floor on the south corner of the building. The Fire Department was notified of the blaze through an alarm system, and through residents calling 911 saying they saw fire.
Johnson said by the time he arrived on the scene the displaced residents were evacuating to the Bluffs clubhouse. “And we evacuated a couple of the other buildings to get folks out of the hazard area.” For the remainder of the day the Fire Department will be searching for hot spots, and investigating the possible cause of the blaze.
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Firefighters and law enforcement converged on the Bluffs Apartment complex on the south side of Junction City at 1:12 a.m. Saturday for a major fire.
Junction City Fire Chief Terry Johnson confirmed Building B, containing 28 apartment units, is a loss. No one was injured.
Johnson said they received a call on a structure fire, with fire showing. Law enforcement personnel began evacuating residents from the building. “Our first arriving units came in. We had heavy fire on the south side of the building. We came in, fire was through the roof, we started operations. We went through several evolutions of operations at this point. The building is a loss at this time, unfortunately. ”
Johnson reported that multiple agencies responded to help including the Junction City, Abilene, Manhattan and Fort Riley, Fire Geary County Fire Departments, Dickinson and Riley County EMS, Geary County Volunteer Fire Service EMA, State Fire Marshall’s Office, Red Cross, Dickinson County Rural Fire District One, Junction City and Grandview Plaza Police Departments, and the Geary County Sheriff’s Departments. The State Fire Marshall’s Office is conducting a preliminary investigation into the cause of the blaze.
By five a.m. the fire had been mostly contained, but there were still a lot of hot spots in the building, and ladder fire trucks were being utilized to provide firefighters a better view of the top of the structure.
Johnson confirmed all residents of the apartment building got out safely. He estimated approximately 40 to 50 residents were displaced. “Red Cross is on scene. They’re helping out with providing food for the firefighters and support needs for the residents.” Johnson expressed gratitude for all the communities that came in to provide assistance in dealing with the fire.
Geary County Emergency Management Director Garry Berges said they will help coordinate with the agencies. “We helped provide communication between the surrounding county agencies that came in…the Manhattan Fire, Fort Riley Fire, we made sure everybody could talk so everybody knew what was going on. We’ll be here to support. We made sure the Red Cross was enroute to help, not only the firefighters, but also the displaced residents.”
This is the second time there has been a major fire at the Bluffs Apartment Complex. In April of 2016 an apartment building at that complex was destroyed by fire. In that incident no one was injured.
