Early video above from Matt Nowak of HistoryEveryDay.org from a fire yesterday (Saturday) evening in the penthouse of an eight-story apartment building in Downtown Cleveland, Ohio. The fire broke out about a half hour before the start of the Indians-Twins games at Progressive Field just a few blocks away. There were traffic delays for those heading to the game.
Immediately below is additional early video below from Aaron Freeder who eventually gets into the block where the fire occurred.
The fire started around 6:30 p.m.Saturday in the 8th floor penthouse apartment of the Finance building, downtown Cleveland.
The building has City Tap bar as an anchor and stands on that Prospect/Huron roads. wedge between E 9th and E 4th streets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhKE6NFjdEs
Cleveland Fire Department spokesman, Larry Gray, told Channel 3 News, “When we arrived on the scene, it was total fire on that floor, as well as up on the roof. So our main concern was first getting to the fire and second evacuating the building.”
Veronica McGraw, Samah Assad & Corrina Pysam, WEWS-TV:
The Cleveland Fire Department said the triple-alarm blaze started in the eight-story Finance Building penthouse apartments above City Tap bar, located at 748 Prospect Avenue east, and tore through the roof.
Witnesses in the area for the Cleveland Indians game against the Minnesota Twins told newsnet5.com they heard an explosion and saw black smoke.
Gray said the fire started in the eighth-floor penthouse apartment. The penthouse owner was not home at the time. Investigators are trying to determine a cause. The amount of damage is unknown but Gray said there was extensive water damage throughout the building. The top floors also had smoke and heat damage.
The building does not have a modern sprinkler system, Gray said. Firefighters used 120-foot ladders to attack the fire on the roof. Firefighters also carried hoses up eight flights of stairs and attacked it door-to-door. The fire was extinguished in about an hour.
