University Point Apartment has fire due to outdated construction methods, tenants displaced

Residents on the second floor of University Point Apartments were trapped inside the building as a fire was blocking the stairwell and traveling through the walls and attic.

An electrical fire sparked the morning of Saturday, March 23. Multiple 911 calls were made reporting smoke showing from the roof of the building. The firefighters at the site worked for seven hours to completely extinguish the fire.

Maryville Fire Department Fire Chief Jace Pine said due to outdated construction methods, the fire was able to spread throughout the entire building. These techniques allowed for the fire to spread through walls and up into the attic of the building after it started in one apartment.

“The wall in the area of origin was double studded, there were two studs separated by about a quarter-inch gap, and so that was probably done to allow extra space to run piping and wires through,” Pine said. “But that quarter-inch gap allowed that fire to spread horizontally through that wall.”

A double-studded wall is built by using two framed walls that have a gap between them, and this gap is used for further insulation, according to the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. To prevent events like fire spreading, along with filling the gap between the walls with insulation, there is also drywall placed on either side, Pine said.

However, the walls in the University Point Apartments were not built with these precautionary methods.

Within the structure of these apartments, there is an attic that goes overtop the entire building. 

Pine said due to the spread of fire through the walls, as well as a pipe that was likely not sealed, the fire had direct access to the entire attic.

Pine said if the University Point Apartments had been built recently, it would have been done differently, and with more fire precautionary steps.

“If that building had been built today there would be fire breaks or draft breaks throughout the attic space to ensure that fire can’t spread through the whole attic,” Pine said. “But with that building, with the year it was built, that fire was allowed as soon as it got into the attic to spread in other apartments and other walls.”

Fire breaks are materials that subdivide a space to stop the spread of flames, according to Code Consultants International. A draft break is similar, however, instead of stopping flames, it prevents gases and smoke from moving throughout a building.

Due to the spread of the fire into the building stairwell, second-floor residents were trapped inside the building. Upon arrival, Firefighter EMT at Maryville Public Safety Thomas Shifflett said they started working on getting the tenants out of the building.

“We were able to take ladders off the truck, make entry through the front door and go up and knock the fire down on the stairwell,” Shifflett said. “Then we were able to get into the apartments and get to the people that were trapped.”

In total there were eight tenants rescued from the building; the fire department and the police department each evacuated four of them. 

There were no reported injuries from the victims or the firefighters.

The damage caused by the fire was minimal, but due to the amount of area the fire spread into, there were hours of overhaul work done by the fire department to completely put the flames out.

Pine said the most damage was caused by all the effort to ensure the fire was put out.

“The fire damage itself had worked through some walls and such but a lot of the damage in that building came from overhaul to ensure that there wasn’t an additional extension and also fire suppression efforts, you know water does a lot of damage in of itself,” Pine said.

There were a variety of groups who came to the site of the fire to volunteer. The Jackson Township Fire Protection District and West Nodaway Fire Protection District both had firefighters assisting. The American Red Cross also brought volunteers to help with clean up and tending to the residents.

Community Manager at University Point Apartments Bryan Dulin said that the American Red Cross and Northwest were able to help house residents however he could not make any further comments regarding the fire.

In a Facebook post talking about the fire at the University Point Apartments, Pine said he recognizes and is grateful for all of the work the volunteers did that day.

“As the chief of this department and one of two paid staff members, I cannot express enough how fortunate our community is to have such a strong set of volunteers who willingly gave up their Saturday plans and left their families to help neighbors in need,” Pine said in the Facebook post.