10 residents displaced by apartment fire in Midtown Anchorage

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Firefighters at the scene of an apartment fire on LaTouche Street in Midtown Anchorage on Thursday morning, April 5, 2018. (Loren Holmes / ADN)

Several apartments were damaged and one man suffered minor injuries in a Midtown Anchorage fire Thursday morning.

Scott Eaton, who lives in one of the damaged units in the Stephen's Park complex off LaTouche Street, said he woke up shortly after 7 a.m. to the smell of smoke and someone sounding a car horn and shouting at residents to get out of the building.

As he left the building, he saw flames shooting out a window next door reaching maybe 10 feet, he said.

"They were blasting out like a blast furnace," he said, watching from across the street as firefighters came and went from the building. "It was raging."

Eaton said a police officer on scene told him that items in his apartment, such as valuable guitars, weren't damaged.

"But I guess I'll be staying at a hotel tonight," he said.

The Anchorage Fire Department received a call about the fire at 7:28 a.m. and was on-scene within minutes, said Alex Boyd, assistant fire chief.

Ten individuals were displaced by the fire, including seven whose units are "likely unlivable," said Lisa Miller, spokeswoman with American Red Cross of Alaska.

Red Cross is providing financial assistance to those seven people, recommendations for lodging, and other help, Miller said.

Three people, and possibly more, are affected because their electricity is indefinitely out, she said.

Many of the dwellings had only one resident, so the Red Cross didn't need to open a victim shelter, Miller said.

Joe Cantil said he was driving by the apartments on his way to work, saw the fire and called 911.

A woman in the parking lot, who was also calling 911, told him to scream to wake people up.

"I started screaming at the top of my lungs," said Cantil.

He saw flames explode from one window and four men coming out of the apartment building, including one from the unit where the fire had apparently started. One of the men had singed hair, Cantil said.

He said he and a resident did a head count, helping make sure everyone was out safely.

At about 8 a.m., observers across the street saw a line of flames break out on the roof as smoke poured from the building. The flames were quickly doused with a wall of water coming from inside the apartments.

Firefighters needed about 40 minutes to get the fire under control, Boyd said.

Medics transported one person to the hospital with minor injuries. Boyd couldn't provide further details about the victim.

Paul Boling, a pastor at the First Christian Church of Anchorage across the street, said he saw one man being taken away by medics. The man was walking on his own.

"He looked like he was going to be OK," Boling said.

At 8:45 a.m., firefighters tossed charred insulation onto the ground from the back of a third-story unit, near a corner of the building blackened by the fire.

Fire Capt. John Booher, his gear and hands gray with soot, said he and others fought flames in a stairwell and worked their way upstairs, making sure no victims remained in the units.

He suspects the fire started on the second floor and traveled to the third floor.

Boyd said the department is investigating the cause of the fire.