y now you’ve probably seen images of the huge fire that struck an apartment complex under construction downtown South Bend early Tuesday. WVPE’s Jeff Parrott has more.
South Bend Fire Department Assistant Chief Derrick Erquhart says the call came in at 12:05 a.m. reporting a large commercial fire at Stadium Flats, the apartments that recently started going up at Lafayette and South streets.
Erquhart says firefighters could quickly see the building was a total loss so their first priority was to evacuate the adjacent Diamond View apartments. And across the street, they wanted to keep embers from causing new spot fires at Four Winds Field.
Erquhart says it’s probably the biggest construction fire he’s ever seen in the city.
”There’s been several throughout the country," Erquhart says. "Those of us that are in the fire service, we see it on social media. Other cities have dealt with buildings under construction that have caught on fire. And all of them look similar. They’re very intense fires, especially with all wood-frame construction.”
Now the fire department needs the developer to remove the large crane at the site so that they can investigate the fire’s point of origin and cause.
“Then we can actually get boots on the ground and actually start going through debris.
