As Christmas surprises go, it was the worst Ryan Nibert could remember.

The 20-year-old Kansas University junior was enjoying the holiday with his mother in Shawnee when he got a call informing him there was a fire at the Lawrence apartment complex where he lived.

He drove home hoping it wasn’t his building in flames.

It was.

“That was some Christmas present,” Nibert said.

A total of 25 firefighters aboard four fire trucks responded to the blaze at Hanover Place apartments, near 15th and Massachusetts streets. Two firefighters were injured; one when he fell through a floor weakened by the fire. Two ambulances were dispatched.

Thursday afternoon, Nibert returned home to find out whether there was anything to salvage.

“Oh, yeah, I think I lost everything,” he said as he surveyed blackened heaps of rubble inside what was left of his apartment, one of five in the unit that caught fire. “If not the fire, then it was the smoke.”

Lawrence firefighters, from left, Mark Thomas and Jim Wilson investigate the scene of a Christmas evening fire at Hanover Place apartments, near 15th and Massachusetts streets. Damage to the building was estimated at 5,000.

No one was in the building Wednesday night when the fire broke out, said Deputy Chief Mark Bradford of Lawrence-Douglas County Fire & Medical. One resident returned home to find smoke pouring out of the building and reported the fire at 9:28 p.m. The blaze was reported under control about 12:30 a.m.

Firefighters remained at the scene and investigators worked Thursday to determine the origination and cause of the fire. Investigators didn’t expect to have answers until today at the earliest, Bradford said, adding the fire was not considered suspicious.

Damage to the building was estimated at $85,000.

Firefighter Steve Smith, 42, suffered minor injuries when a section of the floor just inside the doorway to one of the apartments collapsed. Smith fell into the basement.

Smith was rescued within five minutes by firefighters who went through a doorway into the basement, Bradford said. Before the rescue, however, other firefighters had to lower a new oxygen tank and mask down through the hole to Smith.

“That’s something we practice doing,” Bradford said.

¢ 6News video: Hanover Place fire brings unwelcome Christmas surprise

Smith was taken by ambulance to Lawrence Memorial Hospital where he was treated for cuts, bumps and bruises.

“He’s a little sore,” Bradford said.

A second firefighter was treated at the scene for a minor injury.

About 9:30 p.m., Frank Wonka, 21, and his fiancee, Andrea Carden, 24, were driving to their Hanover Place apartment when they pulled over to let fire trucks pass them.

Moments later they saw that the trucks were responding to a blaze in their apartment building.

“We told them we had a cat in our apartment,” Wonka said.

Firefighters weren’t able to find the 3-year-old female cat, Avery, until the next morning. Its body was found under a couch.

“They did everything they could,” Wonka said of the firefighters.

Wonka and Carden’s belongings suffered smoke damage but didn’t appear to have been harmed by the fire, said Wonka, a KU senior from Wichita.

“We’re hoping it can all be restored,” Wonka said.

A total of nine people lived in the five apartments. Hanover Place management was placing them in other apartments in the complex or elsewhere, said residents and representatives of the Douglas County Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Red Cross representatives were available to give vouchers to the residents so they could obtain food or clothes.

A woman who said she was the manager at Hanover Place declined to give her name or comment.