Fire damages Kennewick apartment complex

A father and son doing laundry spotted a fire that broke out Thursday afternoon at the Edison Village Green Apartments in Kennewick.

Junior Leos, 14, walked out of the laundry area about 4 p.m. when he noticed an upstairs apartment had caught fire.

“There was a bunch of black smoke coming out,” he said. “It was coming out over the top of the trees.”

Junior alerted his father, Ernie, who tried to help after seeing the smoke. Ernie told the Herald he kicked open the apartment’s door with another man to see if anyone was inside.

“There was a cloud of smoke that came out,” he said. “It was hard to see at first. But we looked and there was nobody in there.”

Ernie helped check other apartments in the unit, including Tina Adair’s bottom-floor home directly below the fire.

Adair, who has asthma, was trying to get her cat out of her house when she was overcome by smoke, she said.

“People started banging on the door telling us to get out,” she said. “I just inhaled too much smoke.”

Kennewick fire crews arrived quickly and were able to put the blaze out. No serious injuries were reported.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Adair was one of several people who complained of smoke inhalation, said Vince Beasley, Kennewick fire chief. People were checked out at the scene, but no one was taken to the hospital by medics.

Firefighters were able to keep the fire from spreading, though the blaze did cause damage in the unit where it started.

“We did have to punch through the attic,” Beasley said. “It looked like it tried to make a run in the attic.”

Neighbors told the Herald the woman who lived in the apartment was moving out.

This story was originally published March 3, 2016 at 6:37 PM with the headline "Fire damages Kennewick apartment complex."