Five firefighters injured in Kansas City building fire

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Five firefighters were injured Friday morning while battling a blaze at a 1920s building that once housed vaudeville productions and showings of silent films.

The firefighters were injured inside the two-story building about 10 a.m., battalion chief Joe Vitale said.

Four were still in the University of Kansas Hospital's burn unit in Kansas City, Kan., Friday evening. The fifth was released after being treated, Chief Smoky Dyer said.

One of the firefighters was in serious condition, one in fair condition and the other two were in good condition and may be able to go home today.

Two of them are fire captains, one with 29 years' experience and one with 20.

A sixth firefighter was taken to a hospital but not treated, Dyer said.

The worst of the injured had burns on about 30 percent of his body, Vitale said.

He said the firefighters were trying to locate the source of the fire when there was a flashover, which occurs when the contents of a room heat to their ignition point and simultaneously burst into flame.

The injured firefighters, whose names were not immediately released, were able to make it out of the building on their own.

After the flashover, all firefighters were ordered out of the two-story building. By noon, the roof of the building and the second floor collapsed. Strong winds were fueling the fire, leading to fears the building itself could fall.

The building houses Kennedy's Bar & Grill, the French bistro Cafe Apanaire, a bridal shop and a clothing store. There were apartments on the second floor of the building.

Tracey Snell, a barista at Cafe Apanaire, said she and a co-worker, Rosalind Morris, began smelling smoke around 9:30 a.m., which they couldn't understand because the oven was off.

Snell began walking down the street to see if other workers in the area were smelling smoke. As she passed Kennedy's Bar & Grill, she heard the alarm going off. The building was locked, so she returned to the cafe and called 911. She then headed out to alert other workers in the area about the fire.

On her way back to the cafe, she noticed Kennedy's Bar & Grill was filled with smoke and a window was cracked.

"That's when I went inside the cafe, and it had started to smoke up thick enough that I started coughing," she said. "I told (Morris), 'We need to get out of here now.' That's when we left."

Said Morris: "Next thing you knew, all hell broke loose."

The pair lamented the loss of the building in a nearby bar. The burned building, which opened in 1924, included a playhouse that initially was known as the Westmoreland Theater. The playhouse became a movie house known as the Waldo Theater and later housed theater productions as the Waldo Astoria.

Firefighters appeared to have the fire under control by early Friday afternoon, but were still battling hotspots.

Fire officials were not immediately sure what started the fire or the full extent of the damage.

A co-owner of Kennedy's told reporters that employees usually arrive after 10 a.m., so no one would have been in the bar when the fire broke out.