Fire in Dupo apartment injures one, damages building

The occupants of six apartments were displaced and one of them hospitalized after a fire tore through a second floor apartment in Dupo on Thursday night.

According to Dupo Fire Chief Kurt Johnson, the first Dupo firefighters on the scene saw flames and smoke shooting out of the front door and back balcony door of the northeast corner apartment in the Lexington On The Park complex in the 200 block of North Ninth Street around 7:45 p.m.

“We made an aggressive interior attack on (the fire) and got it knocked down,” Johnson said. He said firefighters then used axes, pike poles and saws to cut holes in the roof to ventilate the building and ensure there was no fire in the attic.

“We’re just now going to do salvage and overhaul and make sure there’s no fire extension in the upper apartments,” Johnson said. Five other departments—Cahokia, Camp Jackson, Columbia, Prairie Du Pont and Sauget—assisted at the scene.

The occupant of the burned apartment was transported to a hospital with unknown injuries. No other information about the person or the person’s medical condition was available.

Johnson said in addition to the burned apartment, two other units sustained smoke damage. Occupants of all six units in the building are without a place to stay because firefighters had to shut off all utility service. It wasn’t clear how many residents the fire affected but the Red Cross was summoned to assist them.

Johnson said the cause of the fire remains under investigation.

This story was originally published July 30, 2015 at 9:50 PM with the headline "Fire in Dupo apartment injures one, damages building."