Man identified in fatal Newton apartment fire

A 63-year-old man has died in a fire that gutted an apartment and triggered mass evacuations in Newton late Tuesday night, authorities said.

Newton police identified the victim as Bruce Rempel, who lived in Apartment 607 in Midtown Towers, 115 W. Ninth.

Police responded to a report of smoke in the apartment and were told there was a man in the apartment, Lt. Bryan Hall said in a prepared statement.

“Officers attempted to rescue the man, but upon opening the door were pushed back by heavy flame and smoke,” Hall said.

Firefighters arrived at 10:03 p.m., just after the police.

“We had fire showing out the window” of the apartment when fire crews first arrived, Newton Fire Chief Mark Willis said. “We knocked the fire out pretty quickly.”

But the apartment was gutted, he said, and the apartment across the hall sustained smoke damage after the occupant left the door open as he fled the building.

Midtown is a low-income apartment building for seniors, many of whom have mobility issues. There are 98 apartments in the building, according to Apartments.com, and Willis said more than 100 people live in the building.

“We had to do a number of rescues out of the upper floors,” Willis said. “We had to carry a number of residents down the stairwell.”

Nearly all of the residents were evacuated to the First Church of the Nazarene across the street, where the American Red Cross set up an overnight shelter in a gymnasium. Two residents spent the night there, Willis said, while most of the rest went with family or returned to their apartments about three hours after the fire broke out.

Authorities made sure the fire was out, smoke was cleared and carbon monoxide levels were down to zero before allowing residents to return to the building, Willis said.

The cause of the fire has not yet been determined, he said. The damage estimate will be substantial.

Two residents were treated for smoke inhalation at the scene, Willis said.

“Our resources were stretched pretty thin,” Willis said.

Fire trucks from Hesston, Walton and Halstead provided assistance, Willis said, by sending units to the scene or to Newton fire stations to be ready for any other fire calls in town.

“Our guys were pretty worn out” from fighting the fire and rescuing residents, he said.

Anyone with information about the fire is being asked to contact Lt. Scott Powell, head of the police department’s investigations division at Spowell@npdks.org.

A cause and damage estimate for the fire have not yet been released.

This story was originally published October 14, 2015 at 7:12 AM with the headline "Man identified in fatal Newton apartment fire."