Residents evacuated after south-side apartment fire

Some Westfort residents will be out of their homes for the next couple of days following an apartment fire on Frederica Street Wednesday evening.

Fire crews responded to a call at an apartment on Frederica and Brown Streets, above the Shoppers Drug Mart, around 8 p.m. Platoon chief John Mill said the apartment, where the fire started, sustained fire damage. The rest of the building suffered heavy smoke damage.

One firefighter was sent to hospital after cutting his hand on a broken window, but all of the occupants of the building got out safe.

"Everybody else in the building got out safely," Mill said.

Officials with the Red Cross were on the scene helping evacuees. Mill said he wasn’t sure how long residents would be out of their homes.

"There’s a lot of smoke in there. It’s going to take some cleaning up, a couple of nights maybe hopefully no longer than that," Mill said.

Fire and police had Frederica Street blocked off from Brown to Edward Streets while crews cleaned up.

An investigation into the cause of the fire was expected to begin Wednesday evening, but because power to the whole building was cut by fire fighters, a cause probably won’t be known until later.

"There’s no light in there at all so it will be hard to find out what’s going on until they can get some light in there.”