Massive fire destroys apartment building near NuLu, 50+ residents displaced
A four-story apartment building near downtown Louisville was destroyed after a fire ripped through it early Monday morning.
The fire was reported around 5 a.m. at the 310 @ NuLu apartment building in the Phoenix Hill neighborhood near NuLu. The apartments have three buildings. The one that caught fire is at the corner of Ballard and South Hancock streets.
WLKY NewsChopper flew over the scene. You can watch footage in the player below.
The building is a total loss, according to the Louisville Fire Department. More than 50 people have been displaced.
The incident was initially called in as an awning on fire on the outside of the building, according to LFD Captain Donovan Sims.
When fire crews got there, they found the second and third floors on fire. They discovered the top part of the building was also on fire when firefighters went inside.
That escalated it to a three-alarm fire. Around 100 firefighters worked together to fight it.
Video below shows the roof ripped off by fire:
Fire chief Brian O'Neill said 37 apartments were occupied in the building, but there were no deaths, injuries, nor any known rescues.
A WLKY crew talked to a man whose wife lived inside the building and woke up to the smell of smoke coming from the hallway.
"We were just sleeping, and around 6 a.m. the fire alarm just went off," said Meet Soni.
He described what he saw as "fire trickling down through the vents."
According to O'Neill, the fire moved through a void space that doesn't have smoke detectors or sprinklers. He said the fire was able to quickly move through walls, floors and attic space.
"The fire just kept growing," said Ellen Tinker, who lives in the building across the street. "It almost seemed like it was popping up in random places."
Tinker is a nurse and watched as dozens of her neighbors evacuated just in time.
"We're a very close-knit apartment community, just because pretty much everyone here is either a health care student or a health care worker," Tinker told WLKY.
While the facade looks mostly intact, O'Neill said part of the inside collapsed.
Hours before the fire alarm sounded, around 2:30 a.m., O'Neill said someone called 911 to report a strange smell coming from the building. Firefighters came out to investigate, but thermal imaging cameras used to detect heat through the walls found nothing. Residents in the complex like Tinker said it's scary to know there was a possible warning.
"A lot of us were up at that time because a lot of us go to work early, so seeing that happen it was just scary thinking that our neighbors could be implicated," she said.
Out of the dozens of people who live in the building, the chief said only one person was checked out at the hospital.
The apartment provided water and blankets to residents and let them take shelter inside the leasing office building in the hours after the fire started. The Kentucky Red Cross is currently working to get displaced residents into hotels, shelters or other available units.
A large cloud of smoke billowed above downtown Louisville on Monday morning.
Sims said access to the building made battling the fire difficult and surrounding buildings were evacuated for safety purposes.
Firefighters are continually monitoring it for structural safety since part of the inside collapsed. They were still on the scene as of 5:30 p.m., nearly 12 hours after the fire started.
Mayor Craig Greenberg was on the scene Monday morning and acknowledged the impact of such a loss near downtown, saying his office committed to the growth of the area.
“We are all in on downtown,” said Greenberg. “We are going to continue to build housing downtown in the years ahead.”
He announced later Monday night that all 64 people displaced have been accounted for and are safe.
All of the residents had renters insurance for their apartments, and the Red Cross is helping them process claims and access hotel rooms. A local Walmart is helping residents as well.
You can watch his full statement in the player below: