Poplar Bluff’s full staff of firefighters was needed Friday morning when a blaze broke out in a residence at 317 Relief St.
The fire, Chief Ralph Stucker said, was reported at 9:24 a.m.
“When we first pulled up, they said they weren’t sure about the back apartment, and that’s where the fire was at,” Stucker said of residents outside the building.
“As soon as the guys got it knocked down, they were able to search the back, and the rest of us were checking the rest of the apartments,” Stucker said.
No one was found, he said, in the building which previously had been converted into three separate apartments.
The previous renovations to make the building into apartments, Stucker said, created hazards for firefighters.
“It was a two-story residential house, and over the years it’s been made into at least three apartments,” he said. “Whenever they do that, they put in walls and modify the structure, and it creates extra problems for us.
“When you have a fire, it makes it tremendously more difficult to get to the fire, and a lot of times, that fire can be behind something else.”
That was the case Friday, Stucker said.
“This one got into the roof and ran the whole length of it. We tried to get ahead of it in some of the apartments and cut through the ceiling to stop it, but instead of going from one end to the other, we had to come out of the building, go around and then go into another area and up a staircase,” Stucker said.
Such renovations and modifications are common in the city, Stucker said, and can lead to dangerous conditions.
“This is the stuff that can get people killed,” he said.
At one point during the fire, Stucker said, firefighters had to evacuate the building because of hazardous conditions.
“We pulled everybody out of the structure and used the aerial truck to try to knock it down,” he said.
After staying on the scene until after 1 p.m., Stucker said his crews did a “tremendous job.
“The guys did a good job off the bat and made good decisions. It was just a tough structure the way it was set up.”
Staffing always is an issue, Stucker said, but “being able to call people back in helps because the guys on duty take a beating.”
The fire is being investigated by the Poplar Bluff Police Department and State Fire Marshal’s Office, Stucker said.
“(A witness) saw somebody leaving the back of the structure just prior to the fire,” Stucker said. “There’s a camera in the area and there may be somebody on that camera. They are running leads down now.”