April 16, 1982

Residents could only watch

       "I heard a commotion first, and looked out the window and saw the smoke.  Just as I started to go out, someone yelled ‘Get out! It’s on fire!”  Debbie Raney, 919 Kings Mill Road, Apt. 226, escaped injury in Thursday’s blaze at the Kings Mill apartment complex, but her apartment was in the middle of the fire.  “The feeling isn’t good, I tell you, to know that everything you own isn’t going to be there,” she said.  Residents and hundreds of onlookers stood outside the police lines Thursday afternoon while firefighters from several Greenwood area fire departments battled the blaze.  Reactions were varied among Kings Mill residents.  Some were thankful that they were at work when the fire started, and a few others mourned the deaths of their pets in the fire.  One woman came home to find her apartment engulfed in the blaze and broke into tears.  Dave Rogers, 923 Kings Mill Road, Apt. 259, said he didn’t think there was a major problem when he first noticed smoke from the fire.  “I looked down at this end of the building and saw smoke rising out of the second floor,” he said.  “I didn’t think anything of it.  I thought it was a barbecue.”  Tom Forni, 917 Kings Mill Road, Apt. 215, said the smell of smoke woke him about 3 p.m.  He looked out a window, and saw the top of an adjoining building on fire.  All of the apartments are equipped with smoke alarms, and there are manual fire alarms in the hallways of the complex.  But Kings Mill residents at the scene Thursday said they did not hear an alarm.  Forni said the smoke alarm in his apartment did not go off, but he said the smoke was not thick enough to set off the alarm.  He also said he did not pull an alarm, but went door to door with some other young men to evacuate the building.  He said a woman he does not know was trapped on a third floor balcony of the structure, and that he and some other residents helped her out of the burning building.  Forni’s apartment is on the first floor in the south side of the building and escaped major damage.  He said authorities let him into the apartment about 6 p.m. Thursday, and that most of his belongings were intact.  He said items on the floor suffered water damage, and that there was some smoke damage to clothing and other belongings.  He was staying at his parents’ house today, trying to reach the Kings Mill office to see about accommodations, and his insurance company to report what was lost in the blaze.

         Jim Davis, 923 Kings Mill Road, Apt. 255, was alerted in his apartment on the north side of the building by some other residents who were going door to door to evacuate the building.  He said he then went with the men to make a double check of his side of the apartment building to make sure everyone was out.  His apartment was protected from the fire by a block firewall, and, as he watched firefighters battle the blaze Thursday, Davis said it looked like his apartment would only suffer minor smoke and water damage.  Davis praised the young men who warned him and other residents, and said the building was evacuated quickly.  Many residents were worried about particular belongings while they anxiously watched the fire.  Rick Wilson, whose apartment also escaped major fire damage, is a professional guitar player, and was worried about his instrument.  He said he wanted to go into the apartment to get the guitar out of danger, but firefighters were busy fighting the blaze and would not let him in.  Helmut Grohert was at work when the building caught fire.  He said he was notified at work of the blaze, and came home to see about his apartment.  “I was hoping it wasn’t my building, but obviously not,” he said.  Grohert is an amateur photographer, and was worried that his cameras would be ruined in the blaze.  “They won’t let me in yet, and I understand that,” he said.  But it looked at the time like Grohert’s apartment would be spared major damage.  “I might be lucky, maybe,” he said.  Bob Perry returned to his apartment with a 12 pack of beer, planning to celebrate the new job offer which he had just accepted.  Instead he learned his apartment had been destroyed by the fire.  Perry’s wife, Kim, had been called at her job at Professional Economics in Indianapolis by a friend who saw the fire.  She said the first thing she thought of was her guinea pig, which she later learned died from the smoke.  Barbara Smith stood softly sobbing as she watched firemen break the glass on her balcony door in order to enter her apartment.  Comforted by her mother, Bonnie Smith, Barbara said the apartment officials had called her at work at Lane Bryant’s in Indianapolis to tell her that her building was on fire.  A Kings Mill resident since last October, she was especially upset because she lost a $400 chair purchased only two weeks ago.  “Twelve years of my life were wrapped up” in that apartment, said Bill McCrumb, as he stood helpless as fire swept through his apartment building.  He had been called at this job as a service representative for Indiana Bell by an apartment office employee, but “they didn’t tell me the whole place was on fire,” he said.  McCrumb said he had probably lost a lot of furniture custom built by a friend, several oil paintings and many antique prints he had collected from his travels around the country.  He was thankful he had insurance, although he realized there were many possessions he can never replace.  See related stories HERE and HERE.

 

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