Residents Leap from Windows to Escape Minneapolis Apartment Fire
Photo Credit: McKenna Ewen / Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Fourteen people were hurt, at least three critically, when an explosion and fire rocked a three-story apartment building in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning, forcing residents to jump from windows and flee into subzero temperatures.
The explosion in the largely Somali American neighborhood was first reported at 8:16 a.m. By the time firefighters arrived, smoke and 20-foot flames were pouring out of the second and third stories of the building, officials said.
“People are jumping out of the windows now,” one fire official radioed. Another added, “We’ve got injured civilians out in the street.”
Minneapolis Fire Department officials said in a statement that they were “unable to determine [whether] everyone made it out of the building and is accounted for.”
The cause of the fire was under investigation.
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Everyone accounted for after Minneapolis fire, officials say
By Allie Shah and Matt McKinney.
There was a loud boom, and suddenly the walls of Abdi Qobey’s apartment flew apart as he sat watching television on New Year’s Day.
He ran through what used to be his front door to find the hall filled with flames. He could hear someone shouting for help.
Wearing just a jacket, jeans and a pair of shoes, Qobey went to the blown-out window of his second-story apartment.
“I did not hesitate,” he recalled Friday. “Outside is life. I jumped.”
From his hospital bed at Hennepin County Medical Center, Qobey, 59, described what happened at 8:16 a.m. Wednesday as an explosion and fire destroyed a Somali grocery and 10-unit apartment building in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.
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