A high-rise fire and a knife fight break out at a downtown Wichita apartment building

A fire on the top floor forced the evacuation of the Shirkmere Apartments in downtown Wichita Wednesday afternoon, followed by a knife fight in the street and a man who didn’t evacuate shouting out the window that he was having chest pains.

Smoked billowed from the penthouse of the apartment building shortly after 3:30 p.m., while tenants streamed out a back stairway of the nine-story building and gathered at the corner of Second and Topeka.

As the crowd watched firefighters with a ladder truck battle the high-rise blaze, tempers ran short and two men got into a fight.

One was armed with a knife and the other with a collapsible personal-defense baton.

The knife-wielding man fled to the east and the man with the baton, who shouted “Pull a knife on me again!” took off to the north before police could respond to the incident.

And as the fire wound down, a man on the third floor, who hadn’t left the building, was shouting out his window that he was trapped and having chest pains. Emergency medical personnel were responding to try to calm him down.

The fire was contained to the ninth-floor penthouse, which is vacant and used for storage, said interim deputy fire chief Joe Bickel.

No residents were injured, but one firefighter sustained a leg injury when he slipped on a wet staircase, Bickel said.

Many of the tenants are low-income residents who receive public subsidies for their rent, which runs between $500 and $600 a month.

The apartment building, at 256 N. Topeka, is across the street from United Methodist Open Door, which provides services for the poor and homeless. Several residents said that homeless people occasionally sneak in to the Shirkmere on cold days and hide on the unoccupied top floor to get warm.

Resident Leslie Maixner said he was watching television in his apartment with his dog named Smoky when the trouble started Wednesday.

“Next thing I know, the alarm’s going off and I decided I better get out,” Maixner said, as he stood outside clutching his dog in his arms.

No one knew when or if they’d be allowed back in their apartments. After bringing the fire under control, firefighters were bringing out pets in cages to their anxious owners.

Maixner said he’s lived in the Shirkmere for five years and it’s seldom dull.

“Seems like there’s always something going on in these apartments,” Maixner said. “If it’s not the firefighters, it’s the cops. I just try to stay by myself as much as I can and stay out of all the drama.”

Resident Connie Harmon said she didn’t think much of it when she heard the fire alarm. It goes off a few times a year when somebody cooks something smoky or someone pulls the fire alarm, she said.

She said she didn’t know there was an actual emergency until she reached the stairway and could smell the smoke from the blaze two floors above her apartment.

“This is the first time I’ve seen something like this,” she said, as firefighters smashed the windows out of the fire-damaged penthouse and glass rained down on the street below.

The evacuation came at an awkward moment for some of the Shirkmere’s tenants.

“I just got out of the shower,” said Stacy Phillips, who lives on the fifth floor.

He said he couldn’t find his coat, but managed to put on some shorts, a pair of Crocs and a light sweater before he fled the building.

“Thank God it ain’t freezing,” he said, as he stood on the sidewalk outside the building.

The older concrete structure withstood the flames better than some modern wooden buildings, Bickel said.

A damage estimate and cause of the fire has not been determined and likely won't be available until Thursday morning, but there is no indication of foul play, Bickel said.

The fire was declared under control shortly after 4 p.m.

This story was originally published December 20, 2017 at 3:54 PM with the headline "A high-rise fire and a knife fight break out at a downtown Wichita apartment building."