No one was injured in a kitchen fire on Monday evening at an apartment complex on Wakefield Road. The fire was reported at about 5:48 p.m. Monday in the apartment at 103D Wakefield Road, which is on the far right of the building pictured above.
No one was injured in a kitchen fire on Monday evening in an apartment on Wakefield Road.
The fire was reported at 5:48 p.m. Monday, Oak Ridge Assistant Fire Chief Josh Waldo said. No one was home at the time.
Waldo said firefighters are still trying to determine the cause, but the small fire might have started on the stove. It destroyed the stove and damaged a few cabinets, but was confined to the kitchen and caused minimal smoke damage, Waldo said. He estimated the total damage at about $2,500.
The fire in the back of the two-story apartment building was mostly out before the Oak Ridge Fire Department arrived, and firefighters used minimal water to ensure it was extinguished, Waldo said.
Power will remain out in that unit at 103D Wakefield Road while workers investigate the cause, and the Red Cross was temporarily expected to provide lodging for the residents.
Resident Natasha Blauvelt said she had gone to Walmart to buy birthday presents for her daughter, and her boyfriend Christopher Samuelson had taken two of her four children to the park while the other two were at football practice, meaning no one was home when the fire started and everyone was okay—”thank God.”
“I’m just so happy that my kids had football practice,” Blauvelt said. “They were at the Boys Club.”
She said friends called her to tell her about the fire. She said the stove hadn’t been used since Sunday night.
Blauvelt said the family’s next steps, including lodging, weren’t completely clear. She said she suspected the family’s clothes inside the apartment are probably smoke-damaged.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
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