Sioux City firefighters remain on the scene today of a fire that gutted an apartment building and left 40 residents without a home.
Deputy Fire Marshal Joe Rodriguez says there were 22 apartments impacted. “Our main focus right now is trying to help the resident gather some of their documentation for immigration, papers that they have in their apartments, and there are a lot of concerns about that,” he says. ” So our main focus was trying to contact all the residents and get help them out and gather some of the items in here as it’s unsafe for the residents to go inside.”
Rodriguez says there were smoke detectors that helped all of the residents get out safely. He says it will take some time before they can get in and determine a cause.
“The roof collapsed on the building itself. So we have to make sure we can go safely through those areas and find the source of the fire. What caused the fire on that portion of it,” he says.
The local Red Cross and Salvation Army are helping the residents with places to stay.
(By Woody Gottburg, KSCJ, Sioux City)