Fire starts at Exchange Place after cigarette is thrown in trash

A fire on the seventh floor of the Exchange Place building in downtown Wichita was quickly put out Wednesday afternoon, according to a Sedgwick County emergency dispatcher.

The fire was first reported at 3:36 p.m. Wednesday at the building, which is at the northeast corner of Douglas and Market.

A worker in an adjacent building called 911, reporting seeing flames and smoke coming from the seventh floor of the building.

Dave Wells, president of Key Construction, said the fire started when a worker threw a used cigarette in a trash can.

“Obviously somebody went in there to smoke, thinking no one would see them, huffed down a cigarette, threw it in a trash can and walked off,” Wells said. “That’s why we don’t allow smoking in buildings.”

According to the Wichita Fire Department’s Twitter account, the fire was put out by construction workers at the building before fire crews arrived.

No one was injured, the dispatcher said.

The building did not sustain any damage, “unless you consider burning trash damage,” Wells said.

Wells said he plans to meet with the “couple hundred” subcontractors working on the building and remind them of the building’s no-smoking policy.

“We won’t waste any time trying to figure out who it was, because you never could,” Wells said. “We’ll just get the message out to everybody and tell them we appreciate their cooperation.”

Crews have been working in Exchange Place and the Bitting Building across Market to convert them into apartments. The project, which will cost $66 million, is scheduled for a January 2017 completion.

This story was originally published January 6, 2016 at 6:08 PM with the headline "Fire starts at Exchange Place after cigarette is thrown in trash."