Fire in the Summer

A fire destroyed 36 apartments and left one man dead in the Oak Park Village Apartments on Monrovia in the summer of 2011. 

The Lenexa Fire Station No. 2 determined the cause of the fire was a carelessly discarded cigarette. The man, whose name is not public record, will not face criminal charges for his mistake.

“Basically accidents are not a crime. The man who started the fire had no intent to harm the property or anyone else.  That’s what insurance if for; he has enough on his plate with the guilt of another man’s death,” said firefighter Bob Welch of the Lenexa Fire Station No. 2.

According to Welch, “The fire spread to three floors and each floor had 12 apartments. It just burned right down to the first floor, and it was 105 (degrees) that day and windy. They ended up calling four trucks out of the five stations available,” he said.

Welch said all four fire trucks were on the scene for the majority of the day. “I’m part of the investigative scene,” he said. “So while each of the stations had men out there a long time, me and the other investigators were literally on scene from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.”

The four stations that had trucks on scene continued circulating men for three days to keep the fire at bay.

“With a fire like this one, it’s never going to be completely under control until they get the heavy machinery in there and start moving stuff around. It’s not necessarily an active fire anymore at that point, but it will continue smoldering for a long time,” Welch stated.

Due to the fatality, officials were careful to keep the tenants out of their damaged residences while the scene was being assessed, but fire fighters later determined the damage was too severe for the residents to ever re-enter. Fire fighters were able to sporadically enter and reclaim items such as laptops, but more often than not the electronics were ruined.
            “Because the apartments were so old, they were not up to code with their sprinkler system,” Welch said.  “It’s not a crime, however, because they don’t have to retrofit. But when they rebuild they will need an up-to-date sprinkler system.”

“Fire prevention is a huge deal in our department. If you prevent fires, you don’t even have to mess with them in the first place. We have an inspection division that works 9 to 5, whose only responsibility is to look for building code violations. Sometimes they find blocked exits or that the companies have stacked something too high. It’s a yearly inspection for every business occupancy in the city of Lenexa,” said Welch.

Welch said the city of Lenexa still has their share of fires, but outbreaks like the large fire on Monrovia can be prevented with education and preparation.