Lexington firefighters take ‘bumps and bruises’ battling structure fire in high winds
Lexington firefighters spent hours battling a blaze inside an office building at the corner of West Second and North Upper streets Thursday morning, as high winds made the fire worse and harder to contain.
The fire was called in around 3:24 a.m., according to Mjr. Jessica Bowman from the Lexington Fire Department. When firefighters arrived they found heavy fire in all three units of the two-story building.
Bowman said one unit was residential and the other two were used as offices spaces. All were unoccupied at the time of the fire, but a second alarm was called due to the advanced nature of the fire, Bowman said.
Battalion Chief Chris Ward said the fire was deemed under control before 8 a.m.
“When you have high winds like that it’s always a factor because it becomes a wind-driven fire,” Ward said. “So normally we can control the fire fairly quickly. Now you’ve got wind driving the fire and that just intensifies everything.”
The firefighters had to deal with winds, but they also had to deal with limited access to the building, which is one structure but it’s “cut up to where it’s like two buildings,” Ward said. The fire started in one building and spread to the other. There was also limited access to the basement, which was one of the areas where the fire was most intense.
“We were literally fighting fire in the basement through holes in the floor,” Ward said.
Wind was also an issue for the fire department Wednesday, as it caused grass fires and knocked down trees and power lines. Fayette County was placed under a high wind warning Wednesday into Thursday morning.
Firefighters attempted to take an “offensive” approach to fighting the fire by going into the building, but the intensity of the fire caused them to back out and fight it from the outside. They thought they had it under control, but “it didn’t take very long for the wind to pick that fire right back up again,” Ward said.
The office buildings weren’t occupied when the fire started, Ward said, so there were no civilian injuries.
“There were some firemen that took some bumps and bruises but nobody’s hurt, nobody went to the hospital,” he said.
Firefighters planned to be on scene until noon or later, Ward said. There was also a power outage in surrounding buildings, but Ward said they hoped to have the power back on quickly.
North Upper Street was shut down between West Third Street and West Second Street, according to the Lexington Traffic Management Center. West Second Street was also shut down between North Upper and Market streets. the roads were expected to remain closed “until further notice” while emergency responders cleaned up the scene.
“There’s still hot spots in the building,” Ward said just before 8 a.m. “The fire has been knocked down, it’s been called ‘under control.’ But the attic area, and some of the second floor and the basement, there’s still hidden fire in there that the crews are going to have to go in and mop up and get the fire actually completely put out. And that’ll take a little while.”
Bowman said the cause and origin of the fire is under investigation. Investigators started processing the scene sometime Thursday morning, including the basement which is full of several feet of water, according to Bowman.
This story was originally published March 31, 2022 at 8:57 AM.