A Saturday afternoon apartment fire in the 36-unit Adel Village complex at 2121 Green St. in Adel led to tense moments when it was reported children were possibly inside the fully engulfed dwelling.
Luckily, the children were with their mother, said Troy Kilker of Adel, who has occupied the Adel Village unit for about two years. Kilker said his apartment was empty when the fire started, and he was called to the scene by friends.
“I’m really shook up,” Kilker said.
Matt Ireland, incident commander with the Adel Volunteer Fire Department, said the fire injured no one and the cause was still unknown. The fire appeared to have started in the rear of the unit, on or near the south-facing deck.
A witness from next door said the unit was engulfed when she first saw it and that a propane tank attached to a grill exploded soon after, shooting flames into the apartment from the deck.
The Adel and Redfield fire departments responded to the blaze, Ireland said, and Dallas Center and Waukee units were en route when the fire was controlled, and the mutual-aid call was cancelled.
Most of the other units in the three-story complex were evacuated while firefighters and an officer from the Adel Police Department investigated the incident.
“Thank God nobody was inside,” said the next-door neighbor.
ThePerryNews.com will update this story as information becomes available.
