Firefighters battled an overnight fire at The Mill apartments in the Ironworks Plaza downtown Mishawaka.
Around 3 a.m. a Mishawaka Fire medic unit was transporting a patient on West Street when they saw the fire and called it into dispatch. Mishawaka fire crews responded and quickly requested help from South Bend, Penn Township and Clay Fire, and they all brought aerials, or ladder trucks.
They were still hitting flames with water around 11 a.m. and Mishawaka Fire Assistant Chief Dave Ray said he expected crews to be on the scene all day Wednesday.
The fire’s cause wasn’t yet known. It happened in a section of new units that are being added to the Mill. With no occupants, Ray said there was little risk of injury but the firefight was far from easy.
"Very challenging," Ray said. "If you look down this side, the west side of the building, it's still under construction so access was very hard, to get to that side of the building. That's why we had to use aerials. All the fire is contained to the Fourth Floor attic area but we are going to have a lot of water damage on the other three floors below."
Ray said since the building isn’t finished, its sprinkler system wasn’t yet charged, so fire crews had to manually charge it with the help of the contractor.
"When a building is under construction, it's a whole different animal than, say, The Mill Phase 1 right across the street here."
