Fire causes more than $1 million of damage to Wichita apartments, official says

Roughly $1.3 million worth of damage was caused to a northeast Wichita apartment building on Thursday night by a discarded cigarette, according to Wichita fire Lt. Branden Arnold.

The fire was reported at 10:41 p.m. at Sundance Apartments in the 1900 block of North Rock. Arriving firefighters saw flames coming from second-floor balconies, but all the occupants of the 16-unit building were able to escape the flames on their own, he said. Two people were treated and released as a precautionary measure for smoke inhalation.

He estimated $1 million of damage to the building and $300,000 to its contents.

“‘It suffered an extreme amount of damage,” he said.

The cause of the fire has been attributed to a cigarette thrown from a balcony that ended up in a space between a deck and the building, he said. People in all of the building will need temporary housing, he said, and American Red Cross was on the scene to help.

This story was originally published April 2, 2021 at 5:20 PM.