By Emerson Clarridge and Katy Glover / World-Herald staff writers
Flames roared through a Bellevue apartment building Tuesday, collapsing its roof and leaving the residents of two dozen units homeless, either because of the blaze itself or water damage.
Three people were taken to the hospital, a Bellevue firefighter who wrenched his back and two people who suffered health problems, said Jack Syphers, spokesman for the Bellevue Fire Department. It was not clear how the firefighter’s injury occurred.
This was the second fire in less than a week at the Gateway Park Apartments, located in the 300 block of Fort Crook Road South. Authorities were working under the theory that this fire started on the second floor. On Friday, a fire ignited on a third-floor balcony, but caused much less damage. Both fires are under investigation by the State Fire Marshal’s Office.
Residents had last week’s fire in mind when they heard the alarms Tuesday.
Taysha Hubbard, 24, was in the shower when the fire alarm sounded. She said she thought the alarms were being tested due to Friday’s fire, and waited five minutes to leave her second-floor apartment.
When she looked out her door’s peephole, she said she saw a police officer in the hallway blocking access to the staircase on the north side of the building. Out of her balcony window, she said she saw “chunks of fire” fall toward the ground. She grabbed her dog and left the building, still wearing her robe. Hubbard said someone passing by gave her clothes.
Kimberly Frederick, 51, was in her third-floor apartment when the fire alarm sounded. She looked up and saw flames shooting outside her north-facing window.
Frederick said she screamed as she left her apartment with nothing and exited the south side of the complex.
She rounded the building to see the damage but moved away.
“I couldn’t watch it anymore,” she said. “It’s devastating to watch everything burn.”
Kathy Consbruck, 59, was at work in west Omaha when a friend called, saying the apartment where Consbruck lived was on fire.
When Consbruck arrived at the scene 30 minutes later, the road was blocked with emergency response vehicles. She did not see flames. She said her two small dogs were rescued from her first-floor apartment. Consbruck, who works for Bellevue University, said she planned to stay with her children in Lincoln Tuesday night.
“It’s just kind of numbing. Until I can get in there and actually see, I don’t want to think the worst,” she said of the damage.
Tuesday’s fire occurred in a different section of the same building as Friday’s fire. The two sections are separated by a fire wall and each section has 12 units.
The 12 apartments in the section that caught fire Tuesday were heavily damaged.
Only two units were damaged in Friday’s fire, but the rest were affected by water damage from Tuesday’s fire.
The number of displaced people was not available.
Tuesday’s fire began about 4 p.m. and was under control in about an hour, Syphers said.
The names and conditions of the people taken to Nebraska Medicine-Bellevue were not available. The firefighter is in his 20s. One of the civilians had a diabetic episode, and the other experienced breathing difficulties.
While putting out hot spots, the firefighters inside the building had to evacuate out of fear the roof would collapse.
Bellevue Fire Department Capt. Brian Staskiewicz said about 90 percent of the fire had been extinguished when crews decided to enter the building to put out spots that could rekindle the fire.
“I felt the floor shift, the floors buckled and some of the trusses came down,” he said.
He called for the evacuation.
Staskiewicz said the firefighters knew the roof collapse was possible; the structure was weakened by the fire and under significant “water weight.”
“You just have to be prepared for anything when you’re up on the third floor,” he said.
Firefighters from Omaha, Papillion and Offutt Air Force Base assisted at Tuesday’s blaze.
Contact the writer: 402-444-3106, emerson.clarridge@owh.com
