Four people were killed, four others were seriously injured and about 30 people were saved after flames flooded in Milwaukee on Sunday morning, the authorities said.
The fire, in a four -storey building in the western part of the city, was reported a bit before 8 hours, fire brigade commander Aaron Lipski from the Milwaukee fire brigade told reporters on the spot.
More than two dozen people were saved by several ground and air ladders or by firefighters on their hands and knees that people drag out of the building, he said.
“Our firefighters who rise from the second floor to the third floor, fought fought with the fire along the stairs towards them,” said Chief Lipski.
He said that, according to emergency calls, some residents of the second floor had jumped to escape the fire. The fire quickly escalated to five alarm level (which indicates the high degree of severity of the fire), in which staff and equipment were drawn from several agencies.
“As you could imagine, with an advanced burn condition, heavy smoke conditions in a building of this size, with well -known quantities of people who are trapped, when our members came here, they were far, far, far surpassed with those first reacting companies,” the chef said.
The identities and ages of the victims were not immediately available. Four people were brought to a hospital in critical condition, said Chief Lipski.
The Milwaukee Fire and Police departments are investigating the cause of the fire. The state -fire marshal has also been called to help.
Chief Lipski said the fire had started in a common part of the building and not in a unit, but it was then moved “to involve several floors and several other apartments.”
The fire has shown the building, which had 85 units, uninhabitable; A few hundred people are displaced. Chief Lipski said the American Red Cross helped the affected.
“Absolutely a terrible way to start here Mother’s Day,” he said.
Chief Lipski noted that the building, which was built in 1968, had not installed a sprinkler system or stand pipes. He said that a building that was built before 1974 “of certain size, shape, size, occupation” was not obliged to have sprinklers.
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