Fircrest apartment ‘a total loss’ after kitchen fire leaves roof charred
An apartment fire broke out late Friday afternoon in Fircrest, leaving one unit “a total loss” and displacing at least three residents, according to Tacoma Fire Department spokesperson Chelsea Shepherd.
No one was home in the unit where the fire began, on one end of a single-story apartment building in the 1400 block of Rainier Court, she told The News Tribune via phone Friday evening. Three of four units in the building were damaged.
“The unit where it started is just a total loss,” Shepherd said. “It was pretty burned up.”
There were three people who lived in that end unit. The Tacoma Fire Department reached out to the Red Cross to support them while they are displaced, according to Shepherd.
She said the Fire Department believes the fire started in the kitchen. A call came into 911 about a kitchen appliance on fire at 4:01 p.m. Friday, but firefighters haven’t independently confirmed what the cause of the fire was yet, she said.
The fire spread through the roof to the next unit, causing “severe roof damage” to the neighbors’ place and requiring those residents to also move at least temporarily, according to Shepherd. Crews hadn’t made contact with those residents as of Friday evening, and she didn’t have information on how many lived in the adjacent unit, she told The News Tribune.
A third unit might also be damaged by smoke or water, but the type and extent of damage is unclear, Shepherd said.
