News

Only minor injuries reported in huge condo fire

Fire leaps from the Ivy Terrace condos on West Allen Street. [PHOTO BY ROBERTA WESSELLS]

By Bill Moss, Published: April 18, 2014

A huge fire destroyed most of a condo building on West Allen Street and sent four people to the hospital with minor injuries, authorities said.

Area television reports said the Hendersonville Fire Department and two other volunteer departments responded to the fire shortly after 4 a.m. today. No one was seriously hurt despite the magnitude of the fire, the biggest structure fire in the area in recent years.
"Initially, even though we knew everybody had made it out safely, we did go to offensive, which means we were doing some interior operations," Hendersonville Fire Chief Dorian Flowers told WLOS. "But due to the amount of fire and also the question of the question of the structural integrity, we decided to go back to defensive operations and not risk our personnel's safety. The roof is pretty much gone throughout the entire building. It appears all of the apartments have sustained pretty significant damage."

Firefighters from Valley Hill and Mountain Home fire departments assisted the city fire crew.
The Ivy Terrace building suffered heavy fire, smoke and damage throughout. Flowers told the television station that it appeared that two condos were owner occupied and four were rented.
It was anything but a quiet Good Friday holiday as dawn broke.
Besides the fire, a rollover wreck on Sugarloaf Road at F.H. Justus Road resulted in serious injuries to two people who were airlifted to the hospital, WLOS reported.