A fire at an apartment building in Milwaukee killed four people, critically injured four others and displaced roughly 200 people on Sunday, according to authorities.
The blaze was so intense that residents of the four-story building jumped from its windows – and the first firefighters to arrive at the scene were “outmatched” by its flames, officials said.
Ladder trucks were used to rescue other residents from windows while some firefighters inside the burning building crawled on their hands and knees to get people out, said Milwaukee’s fire chief, Aaron Lipski, on Sunday. In all, about 30 people were rescued.
It was not immediately clear how the fire may have started.
Lipski said the building did not have a sprinkler system and was built in 1968, predating a law that would have required one, according to the fire chief.
“If we had sprinklers in the buidling we would have stopped the fire very, very small,” he said. “We would not have had to have people jumping out of windows.”
Several other residents were treated for lesser injuries in the fire that began sometime before 8am as the US observed Mother’s Day. The blaze rendered the 85-unit building uninhabitable, leading to the displacement of about 200 of its residents.
James Rubinstein, a resident in the building, described how he jumped to the ground floor.
“There was so much smoke. I climbed out the courtyard with my cat in my backpack,” Rubinstein told television station FOX6 Milwaukee.
Emergency operators received calls that people were trapped and jumping to escape. The first arriving firefighters came to be “far, far outmatched” by the flames of the five-alarm blaze, as Lipski put it.
The number of alarms associated with a fire indicates the size of a fire department’s response to it, with a higher number indicating a blaze that is more resource intensive. Anything above three alarms is typically considered major, and five-alarm blazes are rare.
Authorities did not immediately release the identities or ages of the victims. Lipski said the fire began in a common area and spread to multiple floors.
Eddie Edwards, another resident of the building, said he also jumped to escape.
“I wasn’t thinking about nothing but getting away,” he told Milwaukee television station WISN. “Getting out and saving everyone’s life. It was a scary moment.”
The Associated Press contributed reporting
